OpenHandle Python SDK

The official Python client for the OpenHandle API.

Installation

pip install openhandle

The package supports Python 3.10 and newer and ships full type annotations.

Usage

Create a Test key in the Openhandle dashboard, store it as OPENHANDLE_TEST_KEY, and create one reusable client:

import os

from openhandle import OpenHandle

openhandle = OpenHandle(api_key=os.environ["OPENHANDLE_TEST_KEY"])
profile = openhandle.instagram.profile("northstar_forge_test")

response = profile.get()
posts = profile.posts.list(freshness="24h")

print(response.data["handle"], len(posts.data))

The key selects the environment. oh_test_ keys return deterministic synthetic data with a $0.000 actual charge; oh_live_ keys use real public identifiers and normal billing. Never expose an API key in client-side code.

See the API reference for a typed SDK example for every operation.

Resource selection

The SDK follows one predictable grammar:

openhandle.<platform>.<resource>(reference).<subresource>.<operation>(options)

Only terminal operations such as get, list, search, and fetch perform network requests. Selecting a resource is synchronous and reusable:

post = openhandle.instagram.post("Db04otPRpRH")

response = post.get()
comments = post.comments.list()

A profile selector accepts a username shorthand or an explicit reference:

openhandle.instagram.profile("openai")
openhandle.instagram.profile("https://www.instagram.com/openai/")
openhandle.instagram.profile(username="12356")
openhandle.instagram.profile(id="25025320")
openhandle.instagram.profile(url="https://www.instagram.com/openai/")

A raw string is never treated as a platform ID. profile("12356") selects the username 12356; profile(id="12356") selects platform ID 12356. Numeric reference values are rejected because platform IDs are opaque strings.

Call openhandle.fetch(url) when you do not know which resource a supported social URL represents. TikTok short links such as tiktok.com/t/… and vm.tiktok.com/… are rejected by selectors and only work through fetch, which expands them server-side.

Pagination

A list or search operation returns one typed page:

page = openhandle.instagram.profile("northstar_forge_test").posts.list()

print(page.data, page.has_next_page, page.next_cursor)
next_page = page.next()

items() iterates lazily across pages, one request per page:

for post in openhandle.instagram.profile("northstar_forge_test").posts.items():
    print(post["id"])

Async client

AsyncOpenHandle exposes the same resource graph with async terminal operations:

import asyncio
import os

from openhandle import AsyncOpenHandle


async def main() -> None:
    async with AsyncOpenHandle(api_key=os.environ["OPENHANDLE_TEST_KEY"]) as openhandle:
        response = await openhandle.instagram.profile("northstar_forge_test").get()
        print(response.data["handle"])

        async for post in openhandle.instagram.profile("northstar_forge_test").posts.items():
            print(post["id"])


asyncio.run(main())

Responses

Every response preserves the public envelope. data stays typed through the generated models in openhandle.models, and metadata is available on the response object:

response = openhandle.instagram.profile("northstar_forge_test").get()

response.platform  # "instagram"
response.resource  # "profile"
response.captured_at  # datetime
response.source  # "live" or "cache"
response.request_id  # stable request identifier for logs and support
response.billing.cost  # authoritative charge as a decimal string

A missing metric is None. It is never 0.

Errors and retries

The SDK raises OpenHandleError with the documented fields. Branch on code, never on message:

from openhandle import OpenHandle, OpenHandleError

try:
    response = openhandle.instagram.profile("private_account").get()
except OpenHandleError as error:
    print(error.code, error.request_id, error.retryable)

Retryable failures are retried automatically with capped exponential backoff and Retry-After support. Configure the client, or override per request:

openhandle = OpenHandle(api_key="...", timeout=10.0, max_retries=1)
openhandle.twitter.profile("openai").get(timeout=5.0, max_retries=0)

Locally invalid references raise OpenHandleReferenceError before any request is made. ReferenceMismatchError reports a social URL that belongs to a different platform or resource than the selector.

License

MIT