The Looker SDK for Python provides a convenient way to communicate with the Looker API available on your Looker server. The library requires python3.6+ and is annotated using the typing module.
The SDK uses a plug-in architecture (also known as dependency injection) for initializing that supports run-time specific transports (currently only RequestsTransport) and different approaches for managing API authentication (AuthSession and OAuthSession). The methods and models are generated from the Looker API spec by a new code generator developed at Looker.
Please report any issues encountered, and indicate the SDK language in the report.
importlooker_sdk# For this to work you must either have set environment variables or created a looker.ini as described below in "Configuring the SDK"sdk=looker_sdk.init40() # or init31() for the older v3.1 APImy_user=sdk.me() # output can be treated like a dictionaryprint(my_user["first_name"]) # or a model instance (User in this case)print(my_user.first_name) # input methods can take either model instances like WriteUsersdk.create_user( body=looker_sdk.models.WriteUser(first_name="Jane", last_name="Doe") ) # or plain dictionariessdk.create_user(body={"first_name": "Jane", "last_name": "Doe"})
Go from installation all the way to creating a functional micro-application in this 20-30 minute interactive tutorial.
This tutorial is hosted in Google Colaboratory, an interactive online notebook. You can follow along right in the notebook by clicking the button below.
Install python 3.8. We highly recommend using pyenv to install different versions of python. Mac users should use homebrew to install pyenv:
brew install pyenv
Linux users should use
curl https://pyenv.run | bash
Put this in your shell configuration script:
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.pyenv/bin eval"$(pyenv init --path)"eval"$(pyenv init -)"eval"$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"
Follow the remaining steps 3 - 5 of https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv#basic-github-checkout otherwise your python3.8 installation may break.
Now you're ready to install python 3.8:
pyenv install 3.8.2
We'll use pipenv (fantastic virtualenv manager) to manage project dependencies.
brew install pipenv
Create a project directory
mkdir looker-sdk-example
Set python3.8 as the base interpreter for this directory
cd looker-sdk-example/ pyenv local 3.8.2
Install looker_sdk using pipenv
pipenv --python 3.8.2 install --pre looker_sdk
The SDK supports configuration through
- an
.ini
file on disk - setting environment variables
- providing your own implementation of the ApiSettings class
. The latter override the former.
Note: The .ini
configuration for the Looker SDK is a sample implementation intended to speed up the initial development of python applications using the Looker API. See this note on Securing your SDK Credentials for warnings about using .ini
files that contain your API credentials in a source code repository or production environment.
In order to configure the SDK client, create a "looker.ini" file to reference during client.setup()
example file:
[Looker] # Base URL for API. Do not include /api/* in the url. If hosted on GCP, remove the :19999 leaving just https://your.cloud.looker.com base_url=https://your.looker.com:19999 # API 3 client id client_id=YourClientID # API 3 client secret client_secret=YourClientSecret # Set to false if testing locally against self-signed certs. Otherwise leave True verify_ssl=True
Note: If the application using the Looker SDK is going to be committed to a version control system, be sure to ignore the looker.ini
file so the API credentials aren't unintentionally published.
For any .ini
setting you can use an environment variable instead. It takes the form of LOOKERSDK_<UPPERCASE-SETTING-FROM-INI>
e.g. LOOKERSDK_CLIENT_SECRET
A final option is to provide your own implementation of the ApiSettings class. It is easiest to subclass api_settings.ApiSettings
and override the read_config
function (don't forget a call to super().read_config()
if appropriate, Example below). However, at a minimum your class must implement the api_settings.PApiSettings protocol.
importosimportlooker_sdkfromlooker_sdkimportapi_settingsclassMyApiSettings(api_settings.ApiSettings): def__init__(self, *args, **kw_args): self.my_var=kw_args.pop("my_var") super().__init__(*args, **kw_args) defread_config(self) ->api_settings.SettingsConfig: config=super().read_config() # See api_settings.SettingsConfig for required fieldsifself.my_var=="foo": config["client_id"] =os.getenv("FOO_CLIENT") config["client_secret"] =os.getenv("FOO_SECRET") else: config["client_id"] =os.getenv("BAR_CLIENT") config["client_secret"] =os.getenv("BAR_SECRET") returnconfigsdk=looker_sdk.init40(config_settings=MyApiSettings(my_var="foo")) ...
See many python sdk examples in our examples repo