permitstack

Developer-friendly & type-safe Python SDK specifically catered to leverage permitstack API.

Summary

PermitStack:

PermitStack Building Permit API

Access 117M+ building permits across 8,000+ U.S. cities in 48 states and DC (887 active data sources including counties and statewide feeds, plus 75 historical archives), drawn from official city and county permit systems and open-data portals and re-ingested nightly for most sources.

Getting started

1. Sign up at permit-stack.com for a free API key (100 req/day)
2. Pass your key as X-API-Key header on every request
3. See the /v1/permits/search endpoint to get started

Rate limits

Tier	Requests/min	Requests/day
Free	30	100
Indie	30	1,000
Hobbyist	30	2,500
Developer	60	10,000
Business	200	100,000
Scale	500	500,000

Free keys cover the last 30 days of permits; every paid tier has full historical access. Higher volume or custom terms: support@permit-stack.com

Support

support@permit-stack.com

Table of Contents

• permitstack
  • PermitStack Building Permit API
  • SDK Installation
  • IDE Support
  • SDK Example Usage
  • Authentication
  • Available Resources and Operations
  • Retries
  • Error Handling
  • Server Selection
  • Custom HTTP Client
  • Resource Management
  • Debugging
• Development
  • Maturity
  • Contributions

SDK Installation

Tip

To finish publishing your SDK to PyPI you must run your first generation action.

Note

Python version upgrade policy

Once a Python version reaches its official end of life date, a 3-month grace period is provided for users to upgrade. Following this grace period, the minimum python version supported in the SDK will be updated.

The SDK can be installed with uv, pip, or poetry package managers.

uv

uv is a fast Python package installer and resolver, designed as a drop-in replacement for pip and pip-tools. It's recommended for its speed and modern Python tooling capabilities.

uv add git+<UNSET>.git

PIP

PIP is the default package installer for Python, enabling easy installation and management of packages from PyPI via the command line.

pip install git+<UNSET>.git

Poetry

Poetry is a modern tool that simplifies dependency management and package publishing by using a single pyproject.toml file to handle project metadata and dependencies.

poetry add git+<UNSET>.git

Shell and script usage with uv

You can use this SDK in a Python shell with uv and the uvx command that comes with it like so:

uvx --from permitstack python

It's also possible to write a standalone Python script without needing to set up a whole project like so:

#!/usr/bin/env -S uv run --script
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.10"
# dependencies = [
#     "permitstack",
# ]
# ///

from permitstack import Permitstack

sdk = Permitstack(
  # SDK arguments
)

# Rest of script here...

Once that is saved to a file, you can run it with uv run script.py where script.py can be replaced with the actual file name.

IDE Support

PyCharm

Generally, the SDK will work well with most IDEs out of the box. However, when using PyCharm, you can enjoy much better integration with Pydantic by installing an additional plugin.

• PyCharm Pydantic Plugin

SDK Example Usage

Example

# Synchronous Example
import os
from permitstack import Permitstack


with Permitstack(
    api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
) as p_client:

    res = p_client.health.health_check()

    # Handle response
    print(res)

The same SDK client can also be used to make asynchronous requests by importing asyncio.

# Asynchronous Example
import asyncio
import os
from permitstack import Permitstack

async def main():

    async with Permitstack(
        api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
    ) as p_client:

        res = await p_client.health.health_check_async()

        # Handle response
        print(res)

asyncio.run(main())

Authentication

Per-Client Security Schemes

This SDK supports the following security scheme globally:

Name	Type	Scheme	Environment Variable
api_key	apiKey	API key	PERMITSTACK_API_KEY

To authenticate with the API the api_key parameter must be set when initializing the SDK client instance. For example:

import os
from permitstack import Permitstack


with Permitstack(
    api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
) as p_client:

    res = p_client.health.health_check()

    # Handle response
    print(res)

Available Resources and Operations

Available methods

Contractors

• search_contractors - Search Contractors
• get_contractor - Get Contractor
• get_contractor_permits - Get Contractor Permits

Health

• health_check - Health Check
• public_stats - Public Stats

Metrics

• metrics_monthly - Metrics Monthly
• metrics_current - Metrics Current
• metrics_cities - Metrics Cities

Permits

• search_permits - Search Permits
• export_permits - Export Permits
• sync_permits - Sync Permits
• list_permit_events - List Permit Events
• get_permit - Get Permit
• get_permits_by_address - Get Permits By Address
• get_coverage_stats - Get Coverage Stats
• list_plays - List Plays
• system_age - System Age
• battery_retrofit_candidates - Battery Retrofit Candidates
• reroof_due - Reroof Due
• orphan_recovery - Orphan Recovery
• list_covered_jurisdictions - List Covered Jurisdictions

PropertyHistory

• get_property_history - Get Property History
• get_property_by_parcel - Get Property By Parcel

Webhooks

• list_webhooks - List Webhooks
• create_webhook - Create Webhook
• delete_webhook - Delete Webhook
• update_webhook - Update Webhook
• test_webhook - Test Webhook
• get_webhook_deliveries - Get Webhook Deliveries
• rotate_webhook_secret - Rotate Webhook Secret
• get_webhook_secret - Get Webhook Secret

Retries

Some of the endpoints in this SDK support retries. If you use the SDK without any configuration, it will fall back to the default retry strategy provided by the API. However, the default retry strategy can be overridden on a per-operation basis, or across the entire SDK.

To change the default retry strategy for a single API call, simply provide a RetryConfig object to the call:

import os
from permitstack import Permitstack
from permitstack.utils import BackoffStrategy, RetryConfig


with Permitstack(
    api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
) as p_client:

    res = p_client.health.health_check(,
        RetryConfig("backoff", BackoffStrategy(1, 50, 1.1, 100), False))

    # Handle response
    print(res)

If you'd like to override the default retry strategy for all operations that support retries, you can use the retry_config optional parameter when initializing the SDK:

import os
from permitstack import Permitstack
from permitstack.utils import BackoffStrategy, RetryConfig


with Permitstack(
    retry_config=RetryConfig("backoff", BackoffStrategy(1, 50, 1.1, 100), False),
    api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
) as p_client:

    res = p_client.health.health_check()

    # Handle response
    print(res)

Error Handling

PermitstackError is the base class for all HTTP error responses. It has the following properties:

Property	Type	Description
err.message	str	Error message
err.status_code	int	HTTP response status code eg 404
err.headers	httpx.Headers	HTTP response headers
err.body	str	HTTP body. Can be empty string if no body is returned.
err.raw_response	httpx.Response	Raw HTTP response
err.data		Optional. Some errors may contain structured data. See Error Classes.

Example

import os
from permitstack import Permitstack, errors


with Permitstack(
    api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
) as p_client:
    res = None
    try:

        res = p_client.permits.search_permits(radius_miles=5.0, fields="summary", record_kind="permit", page=1, per_page=25, count_only=False)

        # Handle response
        print(res)


    except errors.PermitstackError as e:
        # The base class for HTTP error responses
        print(e.message)
        print(e.status_code)
        print(e.body)
        print(e.headers)
        print(e.raw_response)

        # Depending on the method different errors may be thrown
        if isinstance(e, errors.FeatureLockedError):
            print(e.data.detail)  # Optional[models.Detail]

Error Classes

Primary errors:

• PermitstackError: The base class for HTTP error responses.
  • ErrorDetail: Missing or invalid API key. Pass a key as the X-API-Key header. *
  • HTTPValidationError: Validation Error. Status code 422. *

Less common errors (6)

Network errors:

• httpx.RequestError: Base class for request errors.
  • httpx.ConnectError: HTTP client was unable to make a request to a server.
  • httpx.TimeoutException: HTTP request timed out.

Inherit from PermitstackError:

• FeatureLockedError: Your plan does not include this endpoint, or an option you passed. The body is machine-readable: error is feature_locked, feature names the gate, upgrade_url links to the cheapest plan that unlocks it, and current_tier is the plan you are on. Status code 403. Applicable to 11 of 31 methods.*
• ResponseValidationError: Type mismatch between the response data and the expected Pydantic model. Provides access to the Pydantic validation error via the cause attribute.

* Check the method documentation to see if the error is applicable.

Server Selection

Override Server URL Per-Client

The default server can be overridden globally by passing a URL to the server_url: str optional parameter when initializing the SDK client instance. For example:

import os
from permitstack import Permitstack


with Permitstack(
    server_url="https://api.permit-stack.com",
    api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
) as p_client:

    res = p_client.health.health_check()

    # Handle response
    print(res)

Custom HTTP Client

The Python SDK makes API calls using the httpx HTTP library. In order to provide a convenient way to configure timeouts, cookies, proxies, custom headers, and other low-level configuration, you can initialize the SDK client with your own HTTP client instance. Depending on whether you are using the sync or async version of the SDK, you can pass an instance of HttpClient or AsyncHttpClient respectively, which are Protocol's ensuring that the client has the necessary methods to make API calls. This allows you to wrap the client with your own custom logic, such as adding custom headers, logging, or error handling, or you can just pass an instance of httpx.Client or httpx.AsyncClient directly.

For example, you could specify a header for every request that this sdk makes as follows:

from permitstack import Permitstack
import httpx

http_client = httpx.Client(headers={"x-custom-header": "someValue"})
s = Permitstack(client=http_client)

or you could wrap the client with your own custom logic:

from permitstack import Permitstack
from permitstack.httpclient import AsyncHttpClient
import httpx

class CustomClient(AsyncHttpClient):
    client: AsyncHttpClient

    def __init__(self, client: AsyncHttpClient):
        self.client = client

    async def send(
        self,
        request: httpx.Request,
        *,
        stream: bool = False,
        auth: Union[
            httpx._types.AuthTypes, httpx._client.UseClientDefault, None
        ] = httpx.USE_CLIENT_DEFAULT,
        follow_redirects: Union[
            bool, httpx._client.UseClientDefault
        ] = httpx.USE_CLIENT_DEFAULT,
    ) -> httpx.Response:
        request.headers["Client-Level-Header"] = "added by client"

        return await self.client.send(
            request, stream=stream, auth=auth, follow_redirects=follow_redirects
        )

    def build_request(
        self,
        method: str,
        url: httpx._types.URLTypes,
        *,
        content: Optional[httpx._types.RequestContent] = None,
        data: Optional[httpx._types.RequestData] = None,
        files: Optional[httpx._types.RequestFiles] = None,
        json: Optional[Any] = None,
        params: Optional[httpx._types.QueryParamTypes] = None,
        headers: Optional[httpx._types.HeaderTypes] = None,
        cookies: Optional[httpx._types.CookieTypes] = None,
        timeout: Union[
            httpx._types.TimeoutTypes, httpx._client.UseClientDefault
        ] = httpx.USE_CLIENT_DEFAULT,
        extensions: Optional[httpx._types.RequestExtensions] = None,
    ) -> httpx.Request:
        return self.client.build_request(
            method,
            url,
            content=content,
            data=data,
            files=files,
            json=json,
            params=params,
            headers=headers,
            cookies=cookies,
            timeout=timeout,
            extensions=extensions,
        )

s = Permitstack(async_client=CustomClient(httpx.AsyncClient()))

httpx2 (Pydantic's httpx fork)

httpx2 is Pydantic's maintained fork of httpx. To run this SDK on httpx2, call alias_httpx() at your program's entry point, before importing the SDK, so every import httpx — including the ones inside the SDK — resolves to httpx2:

import httpx2

httpx2.alias_httpx()

from permitstack import Permitstack

s = Permitstack()

An SDK can also be generated against httpx2 directly, so it depends on the fork instead of httpx, by setting python.httpClientLibrary: httpx2 in gen.yaml.

Resource Management

The Permitstack class implements the context manager protocol and registers a finalizer function to close the underlying sync and async HTTPX clients it uses under the hood. This will close HTTP connections, release memory and free up other resources held by the SDK. In short-lived Python programs and notebooks that make a few SDK method calls, resource management may not be a concern. However, in longer-lived programs, it is beneficial to create a single SDK instance via a context manager and reuse it across the application.

import os
from permitstack import Permitstack
def main():

    with Permitstack(
        api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
    ) as p_client:
        # Rest of application here...


# Or when using async:
async def amain():

    async with Permitstack(
        api_key=os.getenv("PERMITSTACK_API_KEY", ""),
    ) as p_client:
        # Rest of application here...

Debugging

You can setup your SDK to emit debug logs for SDK requests and responses.

You can pass your own logger class directly into your SDK.

from permitstack import Permitstack
import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)
s = Permitstack(debug_logger=logging.getLogger("permitstack"))

You can also enable a default debug logger by setting an environment variable PERMITSTACK_DEBUG to true.

Development

Maturity

This SDK is in beta, and there may be breaking changes between versions without a major version update. Therefore, we recommend pinning usage to a specific package version. This way, you can install the same version each time without breaking changes unless you are intentionally looking for the latest version.

Contributions

While we value open-source contributions to this SDK, this library is generated programmatically. Any manual changes added to internal files will be overwritten on the next generation. We look forward to hearing your feedback. Feel free to open a PR or an issue with a proof of concept and we'll do our best to include it in a future release.

SDK Created by Speakeasy