Query API¶

The Query API allows you to query your Pipes and Data Sources 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 a 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 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 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_json_quote_denormals	int	(Optional) Controls representation of inf and nan on the UI instead of null e.g when dividing by 0 - inf and when there is no representation of a number in Javascript - nan. Possible values: 0 - disabled, 1 - enabled. 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)
Parquet	Apache Parquet
Prometheus	Prometheus text-based format

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').

POST /v0/sql¶

Executes a SQL query using the engine, while providing a templated or non templated query string and the custom parameters that will be translated into the query. The custom parameters provided should not have the same name as the request parameters for this endpoint (outlined below), as they are reserved in order to get accurate results for your query.