Recharge Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a Recharge-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with automatic cursor support.

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Recharge is a subscription billing platform that provides a REST API for managing customers, orders, charges, payment methods, and shipping rates. The REST API base URL is https://api.rechargeapps.com and All requests require an API token passed in the X‑Recharge‑Access‑Token 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 Recharge data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Recharge?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
customers/customersGETcustomersList of customer objects
orders/ordersGETordersList of order objects
charges/chargesGETchargesList of charge objects
payment_methods/payment_methodsGETpayment_methodsList of payment method objects
shipping_rates/shipping_ratesGETshipping_ratesList of shipping rate objects

How do I authenticate with the Recharge API?

Generate a store API token in the Recharge merchant portal and include it in every request as the X‑Recharge‑Access‑Token header.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to your Recharge merchant account.
  2. Navigate to Tools & AppsAPI Tokens.
  3. Click Create token.
  4. Choose the appropriate scope (e.g., Storefront or Admin) and give the token a name.
  5. Save the token; copy the generated value before leaving the page.
  6. Store the token securely; it will be used as the value for the X‑Recharge‑Access‑Token header.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.recharge_source] api_key = "your_store_api_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 Recharge 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 recharge_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline recharge_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 customers and orders from the Recharge 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 recharge_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.rechargeapps.com", "auth": { "type": "api_key", "api_key": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "customers", "endpoint": {"path": "customers", "data_selector": "customers"}}, {"name": "orders", "endpoint": {"path": "orders", "data_selector": "orders"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="recharge_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="recharge_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(recharge_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("recharge_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.customers.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM recharge_data.customers LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("recharge_pipeline").dataset() data.customers.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 Recharge 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.


Troubleshooting

Authentication errors

  • 401 Unauthorized – Occurs when the X‑Recharge‑Access‑Token header is missing or contains an invalid token. Verify that the token is correct and has the required scopes.

Rate limiting

  • 429 Too Many Requests – Recharge enforces a leaky‑bucket rate limit (default 2 calls/second, burst up to 40 calls). If you receive a 429, back‑off and retry after a short delay.

Pagination quirks

  • The API uses cursor‑based pagination. Responses include next_cursor and previous_cursor fields; pass the cursor query parameter to retrieve the next page. The default limit is 50 records, maximum 250.

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


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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