Perplexity-ai Python API Docs | dltHub

Perplexity is a real‑time web‑grounded AI platform providing Search, Agent/Sonar chat/completion, Responses and Embeddings APIs. The REST API base URL is https://api.perplexity.ai and All requests require a Bearer token via 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 Perplexity-ai data in under 10 minutes.

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What data can I load from Perplexity-ai?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Perplexity-ai:

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How do I authenticate with the Perplexity-ai API?

The API uses a Bearer token passed in the Authorization header (Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>).

1. Get your credentials

1. Sign in to your Perplexity account. 2) Open https://www.perplexity.ai/account/api/keys or navigate to Developer → API Keys in the dashboard. 3) Create a new API key and copy it. 4) Set it in your environment as PERPLEXITY_API_KEY or provide it to dlt secrets.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.perplexity_ai_source]
api_key = "your_perplexity_api_key_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.

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How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

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uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

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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:

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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 Perplexity-ai 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:

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python perplexity_ai_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

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dlt pipeline perplexity_ai_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.

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Python pipeline example

This example loads search and responses from the Perplexity-ai API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

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import dlt
from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources

@dlt.source
def perplexity_ai_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://api.perplexity.ai",
            "auth": {
                "type": "bearer",
                "token": api_key,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "search", "endpoint": {"path": "search", "data_selector": "results"}},
            {"name": "responses", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/responses"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="perplexity_ai_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="perplexity_ai_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(perplexity_ai_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.

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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):

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("perplexity_ai_pipeline").dataset()
sessions_df = data.search.df()
print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

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SELECT * FROM perplexity_ai_data.search LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("perplexity_ai_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.

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What destinations can I load Perplexity-ai data to?

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

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

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Troubleshooting

Authentication failures

If you receive 401/403, verify the Authorization header: "Authorization: Bearer " and that the key is active. Ensure the PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable or supplied key is correct.

Rate limits and usage

Perplexity enforces rate limits and tiered usage; check the API dashboard and your plan. HTTP 429 indicates you hit rate limits—back off and retry with exponential backoff.

Response schema and selectors

Search responses are POST JSON with a top‑level "results" key containing records (or an array of arrays for multi‑query); chat/completions use "choices"; embeddings return a "data" array. Always inspect the returned JSON for nested grouping when using multi‑query requests.

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.

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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.

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dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install
dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

• How to deploy a pipeline
• How to explore your data in marimo Notebooks
• How to query your data in Python with dataset
• Join the dlt community on Slack