FakeStoreAPI Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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FakeStoreAPI is a free RESTful API for e-commerce testing, offering mock data for products, users, and orders. It supports CRUD operations and pagination. Use it for prototyping and testing e-commerce applications. The REST API base URL is https://fakestoreapi.com and no authentication required for public endpoints; optional JWT token via /auth/login.

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 FakeStoreAPI data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from FakeStoreAPI?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from FakeStoreAPI:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
products/productsGETReturns a list of all product objects
product/products/{id}GETReturns a single product object by ID
categories/products/categoriesGETReturns an array of product category strings
products_by_category/products/category/{category}GETReturns a list of products in the given category
carts/cartsGETReturns a list of cart objects
cart/carts/{id}GETReturns a single cart object
users/usersGETReturns a list of user objects
user/users/{id}GETReturns a single user object
user_orders/users/{id}/ordersGETReturns a list of orders for a user
login/auth/loginPOSTReturns a JWT token for testing purposes

How do I authenticate with the FakeStoreAPI API?

Public endpoints can be called without any authentication. If a token is needed, obtain it via POST to /auth/login and include it as a Bearer token in the Authorization header.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Open a browser or API client (e.g., curl or Postman).\n2. Send a POST request to https://fakestoreapi.com/auth/login with JSON body {"username":"your_email","password":"your_password"}.\n3. The response will contain a field "token".\n4. Copy the token value and use it as a Bearer token in the Authorization header for any endpoints that require authentication.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.fakestoreapi_source] token = "your_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 FakeStoreAPI 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 fakestoreapi_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline fakestoreapi_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 products and users from the FakeStoreAPI 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 fakestoreapi_source(none=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://fakestoreapi.com", "auth": { "type": "none", "token": none, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "products", "endpoint": {"path": "products"}}, {"name": "users", "endpoint": {"path": "users"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="fakestoreapi_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="fakestoreapi_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(fakestoreapi_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("fakestoreapi_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.products.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM fakestoreapi_data.products LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("fakestoreapi_pipeline").dataset() data.products.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 FakeStoreAPI 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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