imagineers-cards-sdk 0.1.0

Python SDK for Cards — create and manage projects, chain cards, and work items with a cards_pat token

imagineers-cards-sdk

The Python SDK for Cards. Create and manage projects, chain cards, and work items from any product — Cards becomes a database you write to with a single API key. Zero runtime dependencies.

Install

pip install imagineers-cards-sdk

Authenticate

The SDK uses the same token the cards CLI stores at login. Mint one at imagineers.cards/cli-token — it starts with cards_pat_. Keep it secret; it grants full read/write to your account.

import os
from cards_sdk import CardsClient

cards = CardsClient(api_key=os.environ["CARDS_API_KEY"])

Projects

cards.projects.create("my-app", name="My App")
cards.projects.list()
cards.projects.get("my-app")
cards.projects.update("my-app", name="Renamed")
cards.projects.delete("my-app")

A project with subprojects cannot be deleted until its children are removed or reparented — the API returns a 409 and the SDK raises a CardsApiError.

Chain cards

The chain is the project's append-only log of decisions, observations, invariants, questions, and artifacts.

card = cards.chain.create(
    "my-app",
    title="We chose Postgres over SQLite for the write throughput",
    kind="decision",
    body="Alternatives considered…",
)

cards.chain.list("my-app", kind="decision", limit=20)
cards.chain.get("my-app", card.slug)
cards.chain.update("my-app", card.slug, status="published")
cards.chain.delete("my-app", card.slug)

Work items

Work items are the ephemeral do-and-toss layer parallel to the chain.

item = cards.work.create("my-app", title="Ship the import flow", labels=["feature"])

cards.work.list("my-app", status="todo")
cards.work.update("my-app", item.id, status="done")
cards.work.delete("my-app", item.id)

Errors

Every non-2xx response raises a CardsApiError carrying the HTTP status and the request that failed.

from cards_sdk import CardsApiError

try:
    cards.projects.create("taken")
except CardsApiError as error:
    if error.status == 409:
        ...  # slug already exists

Configuration

Argument	Default	Notes
api_key	(required)	A cards_pat_ token.
base_url	https://cards-api.krishnanandb.workers.dev	Point at a local or staging Worker.
timeout	30.0	Per-request timeout in seconds.

Returned values are frozen dataclasses (Project, CreatedProject, ProjectSummary, Card, WorkItem). Requires Python 3.10+.

## Development

```bash
uv sync
uv run pytest            # unit tests
uv run ruff check        # lint
CARDS_API_KEY=… uv run pytest tests/smoke   # live round-trip against prod