[Feature Request] Programmatic API Access for Analytics

[airano-ir]

[Feature Request] Programmatic API Access for tRPC Analytics Endpoints

Problem

tRPC analytics endpoints currently require browser session cookies, making programmatic access impossible:

# ✅ Track API works with credentials
POST /track
Headers: openpanel-client-id, openpanel-client-secret

# ❌ Analytics requires manual browser cookie
GET /trpc/overview.stats
Cookie: session=xxx  # Must copy from browser DevTools

Impact

This blocks many important use cases:

• 🤖 AI integrations (MCP servers, ChatGPT, Claude)
• 🔄 CI/CD analytics pipelines
• 📊 Custom dashboards and reporting
• 📱 Mobile/desktop applications
• 🔗 Data warehouse ETL
• ⏰ Scheduled reports and alerts

Currently, there's no way to access analytics programmatically without manually managing browser cookies.

Proposed Solution

Add an endpoint to exchange API credentials for session token:

POST /api/auth/client-login
Body: {
  "clientId": "xxx",
  "clientSecret": "xxx"
}

Response:
  Set-Cookie: session=xxx; Max-Age=86400
  {"success": true, "expiresIn": 86400}

This would:

• ✅ Work with existing tRPC infrastructure
• ✅ Allow automatic session refresh
• ✅ Enable secure programmatic access
• ✅ Require minimal code changes

Use Case Example

# MCP Server for AI Assistants (currently blocked)
client = OpenPanel(client_id="xxx", client_secret="xxx")
stats = client.get_overview_stats(project_id="my-project", range="7d")
# Should work without manual browser session!

Current Workaround (Not Sustainable)

# Users manually copy session from browser
OPENPANEL_SESSION_COOKIE=xxx

# Problems:
# - Expires unpredictably
# - Breaks when user logs out
# - Security risk
# - Not scalable

Alternative Approaches

1. Client login endpoint (recommended - easiest)
2. Bearer token authentication (industry standard)
3. Dedicated REST API (most flexible, more work)

Similar Projects

• Plausible: Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}
• PostHog: Personal API tokens
• Mixpanel: Project token authentication

Questions

1. Is there already a way to do this we're missing?
2. Which approach would you prefer?
3. Open to PRs? (Happy to contribute!)
4. Any timeline/priority?

Real-World Context

We built an OpenPanel MCP server to let Claude AI access analytics. Everything works except analytics endpoints due to session cookie requirement. This affects:

• Self-hosted OpenPanel users who want automation
• Integration developers
• Teams building custom analytics workflows

Thank You!

Love OpenPanel! 🚀 This feature would unlock massive adoption in AI/automation space. Happy to help with implementation, testing, or documentation.

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Priority: High (blocking production use)
Willing to contribute: Yes
Use case: MCP Server + AI integrations