cheki Python SDK

Free, open-source Ethiopian bank/wallet receipt verification for Python.

cheki verifies that a payment receipt is real by fetching it directly from the bank's own public receipt endpoint. No API keys, no paywalls, no scraping with Selenium. This SDK mirrors the cheki project's other official SDKs (TypeScript, Go, PHP, Dart).

Two modes

The SDK offers two complementary ways to verify receipts:

Mode	When to use	How it works
API client (recommended)	Production apps, servers, anything that wants reliability	Calls the hosted cheki REST API, which handles geo-blocking, QR decryption, PDF parsing, and bank-endpoint rotation for you.
Direct verification (advanced)	Self-hosting, no external dependency, research	Fetches bank endpoints directly from your machine. No round-trip to cheki, but geo-blocked banks (telebirr, M-Pesa) will fail outside Ethiopia.

Both are importable from the top-level package:

from cheki import ChekiClient, verify, supported_banks

---

Quick start: API client

from cheki import ChekiClient

cheki = ChekiClient()  # uses https://chekiapp.vercel.app by default

# CBE requires the receiving account number
result = cheki.verify("cbe", "FT26140P01YB", account_number="1000560536171")

if result.is_verified:
    print(f"{result.sender_name} sent {result.amount} {result.currency}")
    print(f"to {result.receiver_name} on {result.date}")
else:
    print(f"Not verified: {result.error}")

Batch verification

Verify up to 50 receipts in a single request:

results = cheki.verify_batch([
    {"bank": "cbe", "reference": "FT26140P01YB", "accountNumber": "1000560536171"},
    {"bank": "telebirr", "reference": "DET8FJGUJ4"},
    {"bank": "dashen", "reference": "B22WDTI261620001"},
])

print(f"{results.verified}/{results.total} verified")
for r in results.results:
    print(r.reference, r.is_verified, r.error)

Discover supported banks

for bank in cheki.get_banks():
    print(f"{bank.code:<12} {bank.name}  [{bank.status}]")

Health check

health = cheki.get_health()
print(health.status)        # "ok"
for check in health.checks:
    print(f"  {check.name}: {check.status} ({check.latency_ms}ms)")

Context manager

ChekiClient reuses a connection pool and can be used as a context manager:

with ChekiClient(timeout=10, max_retries=5) as cheki:
    result = cheki.verify("cbe", "FT26140P01YB", account_number="1000560536171")

---

Quick start: Direct verification (advanced)

Direct verification fetches the bank endpoint from your machine. It needs no cheki server but is subject to geo-blocking and bank-side changes.

from cheki import verify, supported_banks

# CBE needs the full receiving account number
result = verify("cbe", "FT26140P01YB", account_number="1000560536171")

print(result.status)          # VerificationStatus.VERIFIED
print(result.exists)          # True
print(result.amount)          # 20000.0
print(result.sender_name)

# telebirr / M-Pesa only work from Ethiopian IP addresses
print(supported_banks())

Direct verification returns a VerificationResult (different from the API client's ClientVerifyResult). See the API reference below.

---

Installation

pip install cheki

From source (development):

git clone https://github.com/1RB/cheki.git
cd cheki/python
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Dependencies: requests, beautifulsoup4, pdfplumber (the latter two are only needed for direct verification of PDF/HTML receipts).

---

API reference

ChekiClient

ChekiClient(
    base_url="https://chekiapp.vercel.app",
    api_key=None,
    timeout=30,
    max_retries=3,
    session=None,
    user_agent=None,
)

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
base_url	str	https://chekiapp.vercel.app	cheki API root URL.
api_key	str | None	None	Optional bearer token. The public API does not require one.
timeout	float	30	Per-request timeout in seconds.
max_retries	int	3	Retries on HTTP 408/429/5xx (in addition to the first attempt).
session	requests.Session | None	None	Reuse a custom session (connection pool, proxies, etc.).
user_agent	str | None	auto	User-Agent header value.

Methods

verify(bank, reference, account_number=None, phone_number=None, qr_data=None) -> ClientVerifyResult

Verify a single receipt.

verify_batch(receipts) -> ClientBatchResult

Verify up to 50 receipts. Each receipt is a dict with bank, reference, and optional accountNumber / phoneNumber / qrData. Results are returned in input order with computed total / verified / failed counts.

get_banks() -> list[ClientBankInfo]

List supported banks/wallets.

get_health() -> ClientHealthStatus

Check service health (per-bank reachability).

get_receipt_url(bank, reference, account_number=None) -> str

Build a direct receipt-viewer URL (no network request).

close()

Close the underlying HTTP session.

Response types

ClientVerifyResult

Field	Type	Notes
success	bool	HTTP-level success.
verified	bool | None	Whether the receipt is legitimate.
bank, bank_code, reference	str | None	Identifiers.
source_url	str | None	Where the receipt was fetched from.
sender_name, sender_account	str | None	Sender details.
receiver_name, receiver_account	str | None	Receiver details.
amount, currency	float | None, str | None	Payment amount.
date	str | None	Transaction date (as reported by the bank).
branch, reason	str | None	Extra metadata.
duration_ms	int | None	Server-side processing time.
invoice_number, transaction_status	str | None	Wallet-specific.
settled_amount, stamp_duty, discount_amount	float | None	Wallet fees.
service_fee, service_fee_vat, total_paid	float | None	Wallet fees.
amount_in_words, payment_mode, payment_channel	str | None	Wallet metadata.
bank_account_number, bank_account_name	str | None	Wallet metadata.
error	str | None	Error message on failure.
fallback_url	str | None	Direct URL for geo-blocked banks.
index	int | None	Position within a batch.
raw	dict	The unparsed API payload.

Helper: result.is_verified → True when success and verified are both true.

ClientBatchResult

success, total, verified, failed, results (list of ClientVerifyResult), error, raw.

ClientBankInfo

code, name, swift, type, status, requires_account, account_digits, requires_phone, endpoint, color, initials, raw. Helper: bank.is_live.

ClientHealthStatus

success, status, version, timestamp, checks (list of ClientHealthCheck), raw. Helper: health.is_ok.

ClientHealthCheck

name, status, latency_ms, raw.

Direct verification

verify(bank, reference, **kwargs) -> VerificationResult

Fetch and parse a receipt directly from the bank endpoint.

• cbe, boa: pass account_number= (full receiving account).
• cbebirr: pass phone_number= (payer phone, 2519XXXXXXXXX).

Returns a VerificationResult with status (VerificationStatus), exists, amount, sender_name, receiver_name, transaction_date, source_url, etc.

supported_banks() -> dict[str, str]

Map of bank code → human name for the banks with direct verifiers.

---

Error handling

API client errors

All API client errors derive from ChekiClientError:

from cheki import (
    ChekiClient, ChekiClientError, ChekiAPIError, ChekiNetworkError, ChekiTimeoutError,
)

cheki = ChekiClient()
try:
    result = cheki.verify("cbe", "FT26140P01YB", account_number="1000560536171")
except ChekiTimeoutError as exc:
    print("Request timed out:", exc)
except ChekiNetworkError as exc:
    print("Network error:", exc)
except ChekiAPIError as exc:
    print(f"API error (HTTP {exc.status_code}):", exc.message)
except ChekiClientError as exc:
    print("Client error:", exc)

Error	Meaning
ChekiAPIError	Non-2xx API response. Carries status_code, message, body.
ChekiNetworkError	Connection failure.
ChekiTimeoutError	Request timed out (subclass of ChekiNetworkError).

Note: a verification that finds no receipt is not an error. The API returns success: false with an error message in the ClientVerifyResult. Exceptions are reserved for transport/server failures.

Direct verification errors

from cheki import verify
from cheki.errors import (
    VerificationError, ReceiptNotFoundError, UpstreamError, UnsupportedBankError,
)

Error	Meaning
UnsupportedBankError	The bank code is not supported.
ReceiptNotFoundError	The bank returned a "not found" response.
UpstreamError	The bank endpoint is unreachable or returned an error.

Retries

ChekiClient automatically retries on HTTP 408, 429, and 5xx using exponential backoff with full jitter (up to max_retries extra attempts). A Retry-After header, when present, is honored. Network and timeout errors are also retried.

---

CLI

Install the package to get the cheki-verify command:

# API client (recommended)
cheki-verify cbe FT26140P01YB --account 1000560536171 --api
cheki-verify telebirr DET8FJGUJ4 --api --json

# Direct verification (advanced)
cheki-verify cbe FT26140P01YB --account 1000560536171

# Service health & supported banks (via API)
cheki-verify --health
cheki-verify --list-banks --api

Flags

Flag	Description
bank	Bank/wallet code (e.g. cbe, telebirr, boa, mpesa).
reference	Transaction reference number.
--account	Receiving account number (required for cbe, boa).
--phone	Payer phone number (required for cbebirr).
--qr	Raw QR payload (Bank of Abyssinia inter-bank receipts).
--api	Use the hosted cheki REST API instead of direct verification.
--base-url	cheki API base URL (default: https://chekiapp.vercel.app).
--api-key	Optional bearer token.
--timeout	Per-request timeout in seconds (API mode, default: 30).
--json	Output raw JSON.
--list-banks	List supported banks and exit.
--health	Check cheki API health and exit (implies --api).

---

Configuration

Custom base URL / self-hosting

cheki = ChekiClient(base_url="https://cheki.my-server.com")

Proxies & custom session

import requests

session = requests.Session()
session.proxies = {"https": "http://proxy.local:8080"}
cheki = ChekiClient(session=session)

Timeouts & retries

cheki = ChekiClient(timeout=10, max_retries=5)

---

Supported banks

cbe, telebirr, boa, mpesa, dashen, zemen, cbebirr, siinqee, kaafiebirr (and more. Run cheki.get_banks() or cheki-verify --list-banks --api for the current list). Availability depends on the bank endpoint's status and geo-restrictions.

---

License

MIT © 1RB