Connecting Sources

Dinobase supports three categories of data sources.

Category	Examples	Sync needed?	Storage
SaaS APIs	Stripe, HubSpot, GitHub	Yes	dlt syncs to parquet
Databases	PostgreSQL, MySQL, Snowflake	Yes	dlt syncs to parquet
File sources	Parquet, CSV, S3, GCS	No	DuckDB reads files directly

The add command

dinobase add <type> [credentials] [options]

Credential resolution order

1. CLI flags — --api-key sk_live_...
2. Environment variables — STRIPE_SECRET_KEY
3. Interactive prompt — asks if neither is set

# These are equivalent:
dinobase add stripe --api-key sk_live_...

export STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_...
dinobase add stripe

Custom naming

By default, the source name matches the type. Use --name for multiple instances:

dinobase add stripe --api-key sk_live_... --name stripe_prod
dinobase add stripe --api-key sk_test_... --name stripe_test

Creates separate schemas: stripe_prod.* and stripe_test.*.

Sync intervals

Set per-source intervals (used with dinobase sync --schedule):

dinobase add stripe --api-key sk_live_... --sync-interval 30m
dinobase add hubspot --api-key pat-... --sync-interval 1h

Supported formats: 30s, 5m, 1h, 6h, 1d.

SaaS API sources

Powered by dlt verified sources and REST API connectors.

dinobase add stripe --api-key sk_live_...
dinobase add hubspot --api-key pat-na1-...
dinobase sync

After syncing, data is stored as parquet and queryable as stripe.*, hubspot.*, etc.

See SaaS APIs reference for all supported services.

Database sources

Connect via connection string (SQLAlchemy-compatible):

dinobase add postgres --connection-string postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/db
dinobase add mysql --connection-string mysql://user:pass@host:3306/db
dinobase add snowflake --connection-string snowflake://user:pass@account/db/schema
dinobase add sqlite --path /path/to/database.db

See Databases reference for all supported databases.

File sources

No sync needed. DuckDB reads files at query time through views.

# Local directory of parquet files
dinobase add parquet --path ./data/events/ --name analytics

# Single CSV file
dinobase add csv --path ./exports/report.csv --name report

# S3
dinobase add parquet --path s3://bucket/prefix/ --name warehouse

# GCS
dinobase add parquet --path gs://bucket/data/ --name warehouse

Path resolution

Input	Behavior
Directory (./data/)	Finds all matching files recursively
Single file (./data/events.parquet)	One table from the file
Glob (./data/*.parquet)	Matches by pattern
S3 URL (s3://bucket/prefix/)	DuckDB reads from S3 at query time
GCS URL (gs://bucket/prefix/)	DuckDB reads from GCS at query time

Each file becomes a table named after its filename: events.parquet becomes the events table.

See File Sources reference for more details.

Viewing configured sources

# List all available source types
dinobase sources

# See what's actually connected and loaded
dinobase status --pretty

Removing a source

Edit ~/.dinobase/config.yaml directly to remove a source entry. Data stays in DuckDB until overwritten.