graphcool-binding

GraphQL Binding for Graphcool services (GraphQL Database)

Overview

graphcool-binding provides a convenience layer for building GraphQL servers on top of Graphcool services. In short, it simplifies implementing your GraphQL resolvers by delegating execution of queries (or mutations) to the API of the underlying Graphcool database service.

Here is how it works:

1. Create your Graphcool service by defining data model
2. Download generated database schema definition database.graphql (contains the full CRUD API)
3. Define your application schema, typically called app.graphql
4. Instantiate Graphcool with information about your Graphcool service (such as its endpoint and the path to the database schema definition)
5. Implement the resolvers for your application schema by delegating to the underlying Graphcool service using the generated delegate resolver functions

Install

yarn add graphcool-binding
# or 
npm install --save graphcool-binding

Example

Consider the following data model for your Graphcool service:

type User {
  id: ID! @unique
  name: String
}

If you instantiate Graphcool based on this service, you'll be able to send the following queries/mutations:

// Instantiate `Graphcool` based on concrete service
const graphcool = new Graphcool({
  schemaPath: 'schemas/database.graphql',
  endpoint: 'https://api.graph.cool/simple/v1/my-graphcool-service'
  secret: 'my-super-secret-secret'
})
 
// Retrieve `name` of a specific user
graphcool.query.user({ where { id: 'abc' } }, '{ name }')
 
// Retrieve `id` and `name` of all users
graphcool.query.users(null, '{ id name }')
 
// Create new user called `Sarah` and retrieve the `id`
graphcool.mutation.createUser({ data: { name: 'Sarah' } }, '{ id }')
 
// Update name of a specific user and retrieve the `id`
graphcool.mutation.updateUser({ where: { id: 'abc' }, data: { name: 'Sarah' } }, '{ id }')
 
// Delete a specific user and retrieve the `name`
graphcool.mutation.deleteUser({ where: { id: 'abc' } }, '{ id }')

Under the hood, each of these function calls is simply translated into an actual HTTP request against your Graphcool service (using graphql-request).

The API also allows to ask whether a specific node exists in your Graphcool database:

// Ask whether a post exists with `id` equal to `abc` and whose
// `author` is called `Sarah` (return boolean value)
graphcool.exists.Post({
  id: 'abc',
  author: {
    name: 'Sarah'
  }
})

API

constructor(options: GraphcoolOptions): Graphcool

The GraphcoolOptions type has the following fields:

Key	Required	Type	Default	Note
schemaPath	Yes	string	-	File path to the schema definition of your Graphcool service (typically a file called database.graphql)
endpoint	Yes	string	-	The endpoint of your Graphcool service
secret	Yes	string	-	The secret of your Graphcool service
fragmentReplacements	No	FragmentReplacements	null	A list of GraphQL fragment definitions, specifying fields that are required for the resolver to function correctly
debug	No	boolean	false	Log all queries/mutations to the console

query and mutation

query and mutation are public properties on your Graphcool instance. They both are of type Query and expose a number of auto-generated delegate resolver functions that are named after the fields on the Query and Mutation types in your Graphcool database schema.

Each of these delegate resolvers in essence provides a convenience API for sending queries/mutations to your Graphcool service, so you don't have to spell out the full query/mutation from scratch and worry about sending it over HTTP. This is all handled by the delegate resolver function under the hood.

Delegate resolver have the following interface:

(args: any, info: GraphQLResolveInfo | string): Promise<T>

The input arguments are used as follows:

• args: An object carrying potential arguments for the query/mutation
• info: An object representing the selection set of the query/mutation, either expressed directly as a string or in the form of GraphQLResolveInfo (you can find more info about the GraphQLResolveInfo type here)

The generic type T corresponds to the type of the respective field.

exists

exists also is a public property on your Graphcool instance. Similar to query and mutation, it also exposes a number of auto-generated functions. However, it exposes only a single function per type. This function is named according to the root field that allows the retrieval of a single node of that type (e.g. User for a type called User). It takes a where object as an input argument and returns a boolean value indicating whether the condition expressed with where is met.

This function enables you to easily check whether a node of a specific type exists in your Graphcool database.

request

The request method lets you send GraphQL queries/mutations to your Graphcool service. The functionality is identical to the auto-generated delegate resolves, but the API is more verbose as you need to spell out the full query/mutation. request uses graphql-request under the hood.

Here is an example of how it can be used:

const query = `
  query ($userId: ID!){
    user(id: $userId) {
      id
      name
    }
  }
`
 
const variables = { userId: 'abc' }
 
graphcool.request(query, variables)
  .then(result => console.log(result))
// sample result:
// {"data": { "user": { "id": "abc", "name": "Sarah" } } }

Usage

• graphql-boilerplate.
• graphql-server-example.

Next steps

• Code generation at build-time for the auto-generated delegate resolvers