Python SDK

The Python SDK lets you send events to Amplitude. This library is open-source, check it out on GitHub.

Getting started¶

Use this quickstart guide to get started with Amplitude Python SDK.

Usage¶

Initialize the SDK¶

You must initialize the SDK before any events are instrumented. The API key for your Amplitude project is required. You can also pass a config object in this call. You can use the SDK client instance across requests after it's initialized.

from amplitude import Amplitude


client = Amplitude(AMPLITUDE_API_KEY)

Configuration¶

The SDK accepts an object to configure the SDK's behavior.

def callback_func(event, code, message=None):
  # callback function that takes three input parameters
  # event: the event that triggered this callback
  # code: status code of request response
  # message: a optional string message for more detailed information

client.configuration.api_key = "new api key"
client.configuration.flush_max_retries = 5
client.configuration.logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
client.configuration.min_id_length = 7
client.configuration.callback = callback_func
client.configuration.server_zone = "EU"
client.configuration.use_batch = True
client.configuration.server_url = "proxy url that forwarding the requests"
client.configuration.opt_out = False

Configure batching behavior¶

To support high-performance environments, the SDK sends events in batches. Every event logged by track method is queued in memory. Events are flushed in batches in background. You can customize batch behavior with flush_queue_size and flush_interval_millis. By default, the SDK is in regular mode with serverUrl to https://api2.amplitude.com/2/httpapi. For customers who want to send large batches of data at a time, switch to batch mode by setting use_batch to trueto set setServerUrl to batch event upload API https://api2.amplitude.com/batch. Both the regular mode and the batch mode use the same flush queue size and flush intervals.

from amplitude import Amplitude


client = Amplitude(AMPLITUDE_API_KEY)

# Events queued in memory will flush when number of events exceed upload threshold
# Default value is 200
client.configuration.flush_queue_size = 100
# Events queue will flush every certain milliseconds based on setting
# Default value is 10 milliseconds
client.configuration.flush_interval_millis = 20000 # 20 seconds

Track an event¶

Events represent how users interact with your application. For example, “Button Clicked” may be an action you want to note.

from amplitude import Amplitude, BaseEvent


client = Amplitude(AMPLITUDE_API_KEY)

# Track a basic event
# One of user_id and device_id is required
event = BaseEvent(event_type="Button Clicked", user_id="User Id")
client.track(event)

# Track events with optional properties
client.track(
    BaseEvent(
        event_type="type of event",
        user_id="USER_ID",
        device_id="DEVICE_ID",
        event_properties={
            "source": "notification"
        }
))

User properties¶

User properties help you understand your users at the time they performed some action within your app such as their device details, their preferences, or language.

Identify is for setting the user properties of a particular user without sending any event. The SDK supports the operations set, set_once, unset, add, append, prepend, pre_insert, post_insert, and remove on individual user properties. Declare the operations via a provided Identify interface. You can chain multiple operations together in a single Identify object. The Identify object is then passed to the Amplitude client to send to the server.

Set a user property¶

The Identify object provides controls over setting user properties. An Identify object must first be instantiated, then Identify methods can be called on it, and finally the client makes a call with the Identify object.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.set¶

This method sets the value of a user property. For example, you can set a role property of a user.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.set("location", "LAX")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.set_once¶

This method sets the value of a user property only once. Subsequent calls using set_once() will be ignored. For example, you can set an initial login method for a user and since only the initial value is tracked, set_once() ignores subsequent calls.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.set_once("initial-location", "SFO")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.add¶

This method increments a user property by some numerical value. If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it will be initialized to 0 before being incremented. For example, you can track a user's travel count.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.add("travel-count", 1)
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Arrays in user properties¶

You can use arrays as user properties. You can directly set arrays or use prepend, append, pre_insert and post_insert to generate an array.

Identify.prepend¶

This method prepends a value or values to a user property array. If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it will be initialized to an empty list before the new values are prepended.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.prepend("visited-locations", "LAX")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.append¶

This method appends a value or values to a user property array. If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it will be initialized to an empty list before the new values are appended.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.append("visited-locations", "SFO")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.pre_insert¶

This method pre-inserts a value or values to a user property if it doesn't exist in the user property yet. Pre-insert means inserting the values at the beginning of a given list. If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it will be initialized to an empty list before the new values are pre-inserted. If the user property has an existing value, it will be no operation.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.pre_insert("unique-locations", "LAX")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.post_insert¶

This method post-inserts a value or values to a user property if it doesn't exist in the user property yet. Post-insert means inserting the values at the end of a given list. If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it will be initialized to an empty list before the new values are post-inserted. If the user property has an existing value, it will be no operation.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.post_insert("unique-locations", "SFO")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Identify.remove¶

This method removes a value or values to a user property if it exists in the user property. Remove means remove the existing value from the given list. If the item doesn't exist in the user property, it will be no operation.

from amplitude import Identify, EventOptions


identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.remove("unique-locations", "JFK")
client.identify(identify_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

User groups¶

Amplitude supports assigning users to groups and performing queries such as Count by Distinct on those groups. An example would be if you want to group your users based on what organization they're in by using an 'orgId'. You can designate Joe to be in 'orgId' '10' while Sue is in 'orgId' '15'. When performing a query in the Event Segmentation chart, you can then select "..performed by" 'orgId' to query the number of different organizations that have performed a specific event. As long as at least one member of that group has performed the specific event, that group is included in the count.

When setting groups, you need to define a group_type and group_name. In the previous example, 'orgId' is the group_type and each of the values '10' and '15' are a group_name. Another example of a group_type could be 'sport' with group_name values like 'tennis' and 'baseball'. You can use set_group() to designate which groups a user belongs to. Note: This also sets the 'group_type:group_name' as a user property. This overwrites any existing group_name value set for that user's group_type, as well as the corresponding user property value. group_type is a string and group_name can be either a string or an array of strings to indicate a user being in multiple groups (for example, if Joe is in 'orgId' '10' and '16', then the group_name would be '[10, 16]'). Here is what your code might look like.

# set group with single group name
client.set_group(group_type="org_id", group_name="15", 
                 event_options=EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID")) 

# set group with multiple group names
client.set_group(group_type="org_id", group_name=["15", "21"], 
                 event_options=EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID")) 

Event level groups are set by groups attribute of events

# set groups when initial a event instance
event = BaseEvent("event_type", "user_id", groups={"org_id": ["15", "21"]})

# set groups for an existing instance
event["groups"] = {"sport": "soccer"}

client.track(event)

Group properties¶

Use the Group Identify API to set or update the properties of particular groups. However, these updates will only affect events going forward.

The group_identify() method accepts a group type and group name string parameter, as well as an Identify object that's applied to the group.

identify_obj=Identify()
identify_obj.set("locale", "en-us")
client.group_identify(group_type="org-id", group_name="15", identify_obj=identify_obj)

Revenue tracking¶

The preferred method of tracking revenue for a user is to use revenue() in conjunction with the provided Revenue interface. Revenue instances store each revenue transaction and allow you to define several special revenue properties, such as revenue_type and product_id, that are used in Amplitude's Event Segmentation and Revenue LTV charts. These Revenue instance objects are then passed into revenue to send as revenue events to Amplitude. This allows Amplitude to automatically display data relevant to revenue in the platform. You can use this to track both in-app and non-in-app purchases.

To track revenue from a user, call revenue each time a user generates revenue. For example, 3 units of a product were purchased at $3.99.

from amplitude import Revenue


revenue_obj = Revenue(price=3.99,
                      quantity=3,
                      product_id="com.company.productId")
client.revenue(revenue_obj, EventOptions(user_id="USER_ID"))

Revenue interface¶

flush¶

The flush method triggers the client to send buffered events.

client.flush()

add¶

The add method adds a plugin to Amplitude client instance. Plugins can help processing and sending events. Learn more about plugins..

client.add(plugin_obj)

remove¶

The remove method removes the given plugin from the client instance if exists.

client.remove(plugin_obj)

shutdown¶

Use the shutdown method to close the instance. A closed instance doesn't accept new events and tries to flush events left in the buffer. Then the client instance shuts down running threads. In version v1.1.1 and higher, the shutdown method is automatically registered to be called when the main thread exits.

client.shutdown()

Amplitude SDK plugin¶

Plugins allow you to extend Amplitude SDK's behavior by, for example, modifying event properties (enrichment type) or sending to third-party APIs (destination type). A plugin is an object with methods setup() and execute().

Plugin.setup¶

This method contains logic for preparing the plugin for use and has client instance as a parameter. The expected return value is None. A typical use for this method, is to copy configuration from client.configuration or instantiate plugin dependencies. This method is called when you register the plugin to the client via client.add().

Plugin.execute¶

This method contains the logic for processing events and has event instance as parameter. If used as enrichment type plugin, the expected return value is the modified/enriched event. If used as a destination type plugin, the expected return value is a map with keys: event (BaseEvent), code (number), and message (string). This method is called for each event that's instrumented using the client interface, including Identify, GroupIdentify and Revenue events.

Plugin examples¶

Enrichment type plugin¶

Here's an example of a plugin that modifies each event that's instrumented by adding an increment integer to event_id property of an event.

from threading import Lock
from amplitude import Amplitude, EventPlugin, PluginType


class AddEventIdPlugin(EventPlugin):

    def __init__(self, start=0):
        super().__init__(PluginType.ENRICHMENT)
        self.current_id = start
        self.configuration = None
        self.lock = Lock()

    def setup(self, client):
        self.configuration = client.configuration

    def execute(self, event):
        with self.lock:
            event.event_id = self.current_id
            self.current_id += 1
        return event

client = Amplitude(AMPLITUDE_API_KEY)
client.add(AddInsertIdPlugin())

Destination type plugin¶

from amplitude import Amplitude, EventPlugin, DestinationPlugin, PluginType
import requests


class MyDestinationPlugin(DestinationPlugin):

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        # other init operations
        self.url = "api endpoint url"
        self.configuration = None

    def setup(self, client):
        # setup plugin using client instance
        # triggered by client.add() method
        super().setup(client)
        self.configuration = client.configuration

    def execute(self, event):
        # process event using plugins in this destination plugin instance
        event = self.timeline.process(event) 
        # send event to customized destination
        payload = '{"key":"secret", "event": ' + str(event) + '}'
        requests.post(self.url, data=payload)
        self.configuration.logger.info("Event sent")


client = Amplitude(AMPLITUDE_API_KEY)
client.add(MyDestinationPlugin())