YouTube Reporting Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a YouTube Reporting-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

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YouTube Reporting API enables developers to schedule reporting jobs and retrieve bulk report data for YouTube content. The REST API base URL is https://youtubereporting.googleapis.com and all requests require a Bearer token via an Authorization header.

dlt is an open-source Python library that handles authentication, pagination, and schema evolution automatically. dlthub provides AI context files that enable code assistants to generate production-ready pipelines. Install with uv add "dlt[hub]" and start loading YouTube Reporting data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from YouTube Reporting?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from YouTube Reporting:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
report_typesv1/reportTypesGETreportTypesLists available report types.
jobsv1/jobsGETjobsLists scheduled reporting jobs.
job_reportsv1/jobs/{jobId}/reportsGETreportsLists generated reports for a job.
jobs_createv1/jobsPOSTCreates a new reporting job.
jobs_deletev1/jobs/{jobId}DELETEDeletes a reporting job.

How do I authenticate with the YouTube Reporting API?

Requests must include an Authorization HTTP header with the value 'Bearer {access_token}', where the access token is obtained via the OAuth 2.0 flow.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Go to the Google Cloud Console (https://console.cloud.google.com/). 2. Select or create a project. 3. Navigate to APIs & Services > Credentials. 4. Click Create Credentials and select OAuth client ID. 5. If you have not yet configured the OAuth consent screen, click Configure Consent Screen, follow the prompts, and return to the Credentials page. 6. Select the appropriate Application type (e.g., Web application or Desktop app) and provide the necessary details, such as redirect URIs. 7. After creation, download the resulting client_secret.json file to securely store your client_id and client_secret.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.youtube_reporting_source] client_id = "your_client_id_here" client_secret = "your_client_secret_here" refresh_token = "your_refresh_token_here"

dlt reads this automatically at runtime — never hardcode tokens in your pipeline script. For production environments, see setting up credentials with dlt for environment variable and vault-based options.


How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

uv init uv add "dlt[hub]"

1. Install the dlt AI harness:

uv run dlthub ai init --agent <your-agent> # <agent>: claude | cursor | codex

This installs project rules, a secrets management skill, appropriate ignore files, and configures the dlt MCP server for your agent. Learn more →

2. Install the rest-api-pipeline toolkit:

uv run dlthub ai toolkit install rest-api-pipeline

This loads the skills and context about dlt the agent uses to build the pipeline iteratively, efficiently, and safely. The agent uses MCP tools to inspect credentials — it never needs to read your secrets.toml directly. Learn more →

3. Start LLM-assisted coding:

Use /find-source to load data from the YouTube Reporting API into DuckDB.

The rest-api-pipeline toolkit takes over from here — it reads relevant API documentation, presents you with options for which endpoints to load, and follows a structured workflow to scaffold, debug, and validate the pipeline step by step.

4. Run the pipeline:

uv run python youtube_reporting_pipeline.py

If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:

Pipeline youtube_reporting_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset youtube_reporting_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/youtube_reporting.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

uv run dlthub show

This opens the Pipeline Dashboard where you can verify pipeline state, load metrics, schema (tables, columns, types), and query the loaded data directly.


Python pipeline example

This example loads jobs and jobs.reports from the YouTube Reporting API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

import dlt from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources @dlt.source def youtube_reporting_source(credentials=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://youtubereporting.googleapis.com", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": credentials}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "jobs", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/jobs", "data_selector": "jobs"}}, {"name": "job_reports", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/jobs/{jobId}/reports", "data_selector": "reports"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="youtube_reporting_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="youtube_reporting_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(youtube_reporting_source()) print(load_info)

To add more endpoints, append entries from the resource table to the "resources" list using the same name, path, and data_selector pattern.


How do I query the loaded data?

Once the pipeline runs, dlt creates one table per resource. You can query with Python or SQL.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("youtube_reporting_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.jobs.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM youtube_reporting_data.jobs LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("youtube_reporting_pipeline").dataset() data.jobs.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.


What destinations can I load YouTube Reporting data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

DestinationExample value
DuckDB (local, default)"duckdb"
PostgreSQL"postgres"
BigQuery"bigquery"
Snowflake"snowflake"
Redshift"redshift"
Databricks"databricks"
Filesystem (S3, GCS, Azure)"filesystem"

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.


Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI harness:

  • data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
  • dlthub-platform — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
uv run dlthub ai toolkit install data-exploration uv run dlthub ai toolkit install dlthub-platform

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