Flow Bio Python API Docs | dltHub
Build a Flow Bio-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI Workbench support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.
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Flow Bio's REST API allows data access and modification via the web frontend. It supports uploading data, running pipelines, and managing users. Authentication is required for API requests. The REST API base URL is https://api.flow.bio/ and All requests require a Bearer token in the 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 pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Flow Bio data in under 10 minutes.
What data can I load from Flow Bio?
Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Flow Bio:
| Resource | Endpoint | Method | Data selector | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| me | /me | GET | Returns the authenticated user's profile information. | |
| ping | /ping | GET | Simple health check returning the string "pong". | |
| health | /health | GET | Returns service health status, e.g., { "status": "healthy" }. | |
| search | /search | GET | results | Returns search results grouped under the "results" object containing arrays such as "samples", "projects", etc. |
| search_info | /search/info | GET | Provides metadata about searchable fields (organisms, pipelines, etc.). | |
| users_search | /users/search | GET | Searches users; response is a top‑level array of user objects. | |
| downloads_status | /downloads/status | GET | Returns the status of a download job. | |
| downloads_file | /downloads/<data_id>/ | GET | Returns a binary file for the specified data ID and filename. |
How do I authenticate with the Flow Bio API?
Include the token in the request header as 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'.
1. Get your credentials
- Log in to your Flow Bio account.
- Navigate to the user profile or account settings page.
- Find the section titled "API Tokens" or "Access Tokens".
- Click "Generate New Token" and give it a descriptive name.
- Copy the generated token and store it securely; you will not be able to view it again.
- Use this token as the value for the 'access_token' parameter in dlt.
2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml
[sources.flow_bio_source] access_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 Flow Bio 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 flow_bio_pipeline.py
If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:
Pipeline flow_bio_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset flow_bio_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/flow_bio.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs
Inspect your pipeline and data:
dlt pipeline flow_bio_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 search and downloads_status from the Flow Bio 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 flow_bio_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.flow.bio/", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "token": access_token, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "search", "endpoint": {"path": "search", "data_selector": "results"}}, {"name": "downloads_status", "endpoint": {"path": "downloads/status"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="flow_bio_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="flow_bio_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(flow_bio_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("flow_bio_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.search.df() print(sessions_df.head())
SQL (DuckDB example):
SELECT * FROM flow_bio_data.search LIMIT 10;
In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:
import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("flow_bio_pipeline").dataset() data.search.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 Flow Bio data to?
dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:
| Destination | Example 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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