Airtable Sync

Push scraped or monitored data into an Airtable base with change-aware upsert.

Live demo: https://airtable.com/appLRSprzirec0S5h/shrFbmtpNMrjxDG3H (the top 20 crypto prices, written and kept current by this connector).

Most "send data to Airtable" scripts either append a fresh copy every run (duplicates) or rewrite every record (needless writes, a polluted revision history, and API rate limits hit fast). This connector fetches the current rows, compares only the fields it manages, and writes just the difference: new rows created, changed rows updated, identical rows skipped.

What's included

• airtable_sync.py: the reusable connector (AirtableSync, SyncReport). Drop it into any project.
• crypto_monitor.py: a working demo that pulls the top 20 coins from CoinGecko and syncs them into Airtable.
• setup_table.py: creates the demo table and its typed columns through the Airtable metadata API, so you don't set fields up by hand.
• crypto_schema.py: field layout shared by the setup script and the monitor.
• config.py: loads credentials from .env.
• test_airtable_sync.py: unit tests for the connector, no network.

How the connector works

from airtable_sync import AirtableSync

sync = AirtableSync.from_token(token, base_id, "Contacts", key_field="Email")
report = sync.sync([
    {"Email": "alice@example.com", "Name": "Alice"},
    {"Email": "bob@example.com",   "Name": "Bob"},
])
print(report.created, report.updated, report.unchanged)

sync() reads the table once, matches incoming rows against existing ones on key_field, and batches the creates and updates. Columns a person added in Airtable by hand are ignored when deciding whether a row changed, so manual notes never trigger a phantom update.

Setup

python3 -m venv venv
venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env

Create a personal access token at https://airtable.com/create/tokens with scopes data.records:read, data.records:write, schema.bases:read, schema.bases:write, granted on your base. Put the token and the base id (the app... part of the base URL) into .env.

venv/bin/python setup_table.py                    # creates the Crypto table
venv/bin/python crypto_monitor.py                 # fills it; run again to see the upsert
venv/bin/python crypto_monitor.py --interval 60   # keep it refreshing every 60s

First run prints 20 created, 0 updated, 0 unchanged. A later run prints something like 0 created, 16 updated, 4 unchanged: no duplicates, only the coins whose price moved get rewritten.

Tests

venv/bin/python -m pytest

Adapting it

Point crypto_monitor.py at your own source: replace fetch_top_coins and to_airtable_row, set key_field to whatever uniquely identifies a row (an email, an order id, a SKU), and adjust the columns in crypto_schema.py.

---

Built by Adam Kramarczyk. More Python tools and live demos at helban.dev.