pyyorkshirewater

Async Python client for the Yorkshire Water customer self-service API.

This library is unofficial and not affiliated with Yorkshire Water. It exists so that customers can read their own smart meter consumption data from the same backend that powers my.yorkshirewater.com.

Status

Early alpha. The smart meter rollout is in progress across the Yorkshire Water region between 2025 and 2030, so most accounts will not yet have a live meter. Until a meter is live the client will report a MeterStatus of NO_METER or PENDING_ACTIVATION, and the consumption endpoints (get_your_usage, get_daily_consumption, get_yearly_consumption) will raise YorkshireWaterMeterNotReadyError. The readiness probes (get_meter_details, get_current_consumption) work in every state.

Why cookies, not email and password

Yorkshire Water's portal SPA uses Duende IdentityServer with authorization code plus PKCE only. The SPA OAuth client (css-onlineaccount-fe) is not permitted to use the password grant, the device flow or offline_access, and the login form is protected by invisible Google reCAPTCHA v3 which a non-browser HTTP client cannot pass.

The workable architecture is therefore: the user logs in to my.yorkshirewater.com once in their own browser, where reCAPTCHA succeeds naturally, and exports the IdentityServer session cookie. This library uses that cookie to drive /connect/authorize?prompt=none for silent renewal, mints fresh access tokens on demand and never sees the user's password.

The companion Chrome extension (separate repository) makes cookie export a single click.

Install

pip install pyyorkshirewater

Python 3.11 or newer.

Quick start

import asyncio
from pyyorkshirewater import YorkshireWaterClient, MeterStatus

cookies = {
    "idsrv": "<value from a logged-in browser session>",
    "idsrv.session": "<value from a logged-in browser session>",
    # any other login.yorkshirewater.com cookies your browser holds
}

async def main():
    async with YorkshireWaterClient(cookies=cookies) as client:
        await client.login()

        if client.meter_status is MeterStatus.LIVE:
            daily = await client.get_daily_consumption()
            print(daily)
        else:
            print(f"Meter is {client.meter_status.value}, no data yet.")

asyncio.run(main())

Cookie lifetime

The IdentityServer session cookie typically lives between several hours and several weeks depending on the provider's configuration. Each silent renewal call may extend it (sliding expiration) on servers configured for that. When the cookie eventually expires, the library raises CookieSessionExpiredError (a subclass of YorkshireWaterAuthError) with error="login_required". Callers should catch this and prompt the user for fresh cookies. The Home Assistant integration handles this via a reauth flow.

Meter readiness states

Yorkshire Water's portal exposes a three-state model. The library mirrors it through the MeterStatus enum:

• NO_METER: the account has no smart meter on it.
• PENDING_ACTIVATION: a meter is registered but is awaiting network setup by Yorkshire Water.
• LIVE: the meter is reporting data and the consumption endpoints will return real values.

Application code should check client.meter_status before requesting consumption data.

Logging

The library logs to a named logger called pyyorkshirewater at the DEBUG level. Configure it in the usual way:

import logging
logging.getLogger("pyyorkshirewater").setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

Errors

All errors raised by the library inherit from YorkshireWaterError. The specific subclasses are:

• YorkshireWaterAuthError: silent renewal failed for a reason that is not cookie expiry. The original IdentityServer error and error_description are exposed on the exception.
• CookieSessionExpiredError (subclass of YorkshireWaterAuthError): the IdP session cookie is expired or invalid. Re-export from a fresh browser session.
• YorkshireWaterAPIError: a non-auth HTTP error from the customer API.
• YorkshireWaterMeterNotReadyError: raised when a consumption endpoint is called against a meter that is not yet LIVE.
• YorkshireWaterRateLimitError: 429 response with optional retry_after.

Related projects

• dan-simms1/ha-yorkshire-water: Home Assistant integration that uses this library.
• (forthcoming) Chrome extension that extracts the cookies needed by this library and the integration with one click.

Disclaimer

This project is unofficial and not affiliated with, endorsed by or supported by Yorkshire Water Services Limited. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Use this software at your own risk and only against accounts that you own.

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.