Query API

The Query API allows you to query your Pipes inside Tinybird as if you were running SQL statements against a regular database.

Using the Query API

 curl \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <PIPE:READ token>" \
     --data "SELECT * FROM <pipe> FORMAT JSON"
     https://api.tinybird.co/v0/sql
 # or
 curl \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <PIPE:READ token>" \
     --data "select count() from _"
     https://api.tinybird.co/v0/pipes/<pipe>.json

Every resource in Tinybird is secured so in order to use the Query API you must provide an Auth token with Pipe read permissions.

GET /v0/sql

Executes a SQL query using the engine.

Running sql queries against your data

curl --data "SELECT * FROM <pipe>" https://api.tinybird.co/v0/sql

As a response, it gives you the query metadata, the resulting data and some performance statistics.

Successful response

{
"meta": [
    {
        "name": "VendorID",
        "type": "Int32"
    },
    {
        "name": "tpep_pickup_datetime",
        "type": "DateTime"
    }
],
"data": [
    {
        "VendorID": 2,
        "tpep_pickup_datetime": "2001-01-05 11:45:23",
        "tpep_dropoff_datetime": "2001-01-05 11:52:05",
        "passenger_count": 5,
        "trip_distance": 1.53,
        "RatecodeID": 1,
        "store_and_fwd_flag": "N",
        "PULocationID": 71,
        "DOLocationID": 89,
        "payment_type": 2,
        "fare_amount": 7.5,
        "extra": 0.5,
        "mta_tax": 0.5,
        "tip_amount": 0,
        "tolls_amount": 0,
        "improvement_surcharge": 0.3,
        "total_amount": 8.8
    },
    {
        "VendorID": 2,
        "tpep_pickup_datetime": "2002-12-31 23:01:55",
        "tpep_dropoff_datetime": "2003-01-01 14:59:11"
    }
],
"rows": 3,
"rows_before_limit_at_least": 4,
"statistics":
    {
        "elapsed": 0.00091042,
        "rows_read": 4,
        "bytes_read": 296
    }
}

Data can be fetched in many different formats. Just append FORMAT <format_name> to your SQL query:

Requesting different formats with SQL

SELECT count() from <pipe> FORMAT JSON

Request parameters

Key	Type	Description
q	String	The SQL query
pipeline	String	(Optional) The name of the pipe. It allows to writing a query like ‘SELECT * FROM _’ where ‘_’ is a placeholder for the ‘pipeline’ parameter
output_format_json_quote_64bit_integers	int	(Optional) Controls quoting of 64-bit or bigger integers (like UInt64 or Int128) when they are output in a JSON format. Such integers are enclosed in quotes by default. This behavior is compatible with most JavaScript implementations. Possible values: 0 — Integers are output without quotes. 1 — Integers are enclosed in quotes. Default value is 0
output_format_parquet_string_as_string	int	(Optional) Use Parquet String type instead of Binary for String columns. Possible values: 0 - disabled, 1 - enabled. Default value is 0

Available formats

format	Description
CSV	CSV without header
CSVWithNames	CSV with header
JSON	JSON including data, statistics and schema information
TSV	TSV without header
TSVWithNames	TSV with header
PrettyCompact	Formatted table
JSONEachRow	Newline-delimited JSON values (NDJSON)

As you can see in the example above, timestamps do not include a time zone in their serialization. Let’s see how that relates to timestamps ingested from your original data:

• If the original timestamp had no time zone associated, you’ll read back the same date and time verbatim.

  If you ingested the timestamp 2022-11-14 11:08:46, for example, Tinybird sends "2022-11-14 11:08:46" back. This is so regardless of the time zone of the column in ClickHouse.

• If the original timestamp had a time zone associated, you’ll read back the corresponding date and time in the time zone of the destination column in ClickHouse, which is UTC by default.

  If you ingested 2022-11-14 12:08:46.574295 +0100, for instance, Tinybird sends "2022-11-14 11:08:46" back for a DateTime, and "2022-11-14 06:08:46" for a DateTime('America/New_York').