Zoho WorkDrive Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a Zoho WorkDrive-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI Workbench support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

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Zoho WorkDrive API documentation is available at https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/workdrive-api-documentation. It allows integration and data exchange between Zoho WorkDrive and other applications. Zoho REST APIs support data transfer in XML or JSON formats. The REST API base URL is https://www.zohoapis.com/workdrive/ and All requests require an OAuth2 Bearer access token..

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 pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Zoho WorkDrive data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Zoho WorkDrive?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Zoho WorkDrive:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
files/filesGETdataRetrieve a list of files in a workspace
folders/foldersGETdataRetrieve a list of folders
users/usersGETdataRetrieve a list of workspace users
teams/teamsGETdataRetrieve a list of teams
activities/activitiesGETdataRetrieve recent activity logs
upload_file/filesPOSTUpload a new file (non‑GET, included for completeness)
create_folder/foldersPOSTCreate a new folder
delete_file/files/{id}DELETEDelete a file
update_folder/folders/{id}PUTUpdate folder metadata
share/sharePOSTShare a file or folder

How do I authenticate with the Zoho WorkDrive API?

Obtain an OAuth2 access token and include it in each request header as Authorization: Bearer <access_token>.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to the Zoho Developer Console (https://api-console.zoho.com).
  2. Create a new client and choose "Server-based Applications".
  3. Record the generated Client ID and Client Secret.
  4. Set the redirect URI for your application.
  5. Use the OAuth2 Authorization Code flow to exchange the code for an access token (POST to https://accounts.zoho.com/oauth/v2/token with client_id, client_secret, grant_type=authorization_code, code, redirect_uri).
  6. Store the resulting access token securely; it will be used as the Bearer token in API calls.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.zoho_workdrive_source] token = "your_access_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 venv && source .venv/bin/activate uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

dlt 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:

dlt ai toolkit rest-api-pipeline install

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 Zoho WorkDrive 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:

python zoho_workdrive_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline zoho_workdrive_pipeline 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 files and folders from the Zoho WorkDrive 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 zoho_workdrive_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://www.zohoapis.com/workdrive/", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "token": access_token, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "files", "endpoint": {"path": "files", "data_selector": "data"}}, {"name": "folders", "endpoint": {"path": "folders", "data_selector": "data"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="zoho_workdrive_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="zoho_workdrive_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(zoho_workdrive_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("zoho_workdrive_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.files.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM zoho_workdrive_data.files LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("zoho_workdrive_pipeline").dataset() data.files.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 Zoho WorkDrive 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 Workbench:

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

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