apollo-server
Advanced tools
Apollo Server is a community-driven, open-source GraphQL server that works with any GraphQL schema. It is designed to be a self-contained GraphQL server that can be used with any Node.js HTTP server framework, such as Express, Koa, or Hapi.
Creating a Basic GraphQL Server
This code sets up a basic Apollo Server with a single query type 'hello' that returns a string 'Hello world!'.
const { ApolloServer, gql } = require('apollo-server');
const typeDefs = gql`
type Query {
hello: String
}
`;
const resolvers = {
Query: {
hello: () => 'Hello world!',
},
};
const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
server.listen().then(({ url }) => {
console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
});Integrating with Express
This code demonstrates how to integrate Apollo Server with an Express application.
const express = require('express');
const { ApolloServer, gql } = require('apollo-server-express');
const typeDefs = gql`
type Query {
hello: String
}
`;
const resolvers = {
Query: {
hello: () => 'Hello world!',
},
};
const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
const app = express();
server.applyMiddleware({ app });
app.listen({ port: 4000 }, () =>
console.log(`🚀 Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`)
);Adding Middleware for Authentication
This code adds middleware to the Apollo Server for authentication by checking the authorization header and adding the user to the context.
const { ApolloServer, gql } = require('apollo-server');
const typeDefs = gql`
type Query {
hello: String
}
`;
const resolvers = {
Query: {
hello: (parent, args, context) => {
if (!context.user) throw new Error('Not authenticated');
return 'Hello world!';
},
},
};
const getUser = (token) => {
// Mock function to get user from token
return token ? { id: 1, name: 'John Doe' } : null;
};
const server = new ApolloServer({
typeDefs,
resolvers,
context: ({ req }) => {
const token = req.headers.authorization || '';
const user = getUser(token);
return { user };
},
});
server.listen().then(({ url }) => {
console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
});express-graphql is a middleware for Express that allows you to mount a GraphQL API server. It is simpler and more lightweight compared to Apollo Server, but it lacks some of the advanced features and integrations that Apollo Server offers.
graphql-yoga is a fully-featured GraphQL server that is based on Apollo Server and Express. It provides a more opinionated setup with built-in support for features like subscriptions, file uploads, and more. It is easier to get started with but may be less flexible than Apollo Server.
mercurius is a GraphQL adapter for Fastify, a fast and low-overhead web framework for Node.js. It offers high performance and integrates well with the Fastify ecosystem, but it may not have as many built-in features as Apollo Server.
Apollo Server is a community-maintained open-source GraphQL server. It works with many Node.js HTTP server frameworks, or can run on its own with a built-in Express server. Apollo Server works with any GraphQL schema built with GraphQL.js--or define a schema's type definitions using schema definition language (SDL).
Read the documentation for information on getting started and many other use cases and follow the CHANGELOG for updates.
Apollo Server is built with the following principles in mind:
Anyone is welcome to contribute to Apollo Server, just read CONTRIBUTING.md, take a look at the roadmap and make your first PR!
To get started with Apollo Server:
npm install apollo-server-<integration> graphqlThere are two ways to install Apollo Server:
apollo-server package.express, koa, hapi, etc.), use the appropriate Apollo Server integration package.For more info, please refer to the Apollo Server docs.
In a new project, install the apollo-server and graphql dependencies using:
npm install apollo-server graphql
Then, create an index.js which defines the schema and its functionality (i.e. resolvers):
const { ApolloServer, gql } = require('apollo-server');
// The GraphQL schema
const typeDefs = gql`
type Query {
"A simple type for getting started!"
hello: String
}
`;
// A map of functions which return data for the schema.
const resolvers = {
Query: {
hello: () => 'world',
},
};
const server = new ApolloServer({
typeDefs,
resolvers,
});
server.listen().then(({ url }) => {
console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
});
Due to its human-readability, we recommend using schema-definition language (SDL) to define a GraphQL schema--a
GraphQLSchemaobject fromgraphql-jscan also be specified instead oftypeDefsandresolversusing theschemaproperty:const server = new ApolloServer({ schema: ... });
Finally, start the server using node index.js and go to the URL returned on the console.
For more details, check out the Apollo Server Getting Started guide and the fullstack tutorial.
For questions, the Apollo community forum is a great place to get help.
While the standalone installation above can be used without making a decision about which web framework to use, the Apollo Server integration packages are paired with specific web frameworks (e.g. Express, Koa, hapi).
The following web frameworks have Apollo Server integrations, and each of these linked integrations has its own installation instructions and examples on its package README.md:
A request context is available for each request. When context is defined as a function, it will be called on each request and will receive an object containing a req property, which represents the request itself.
By returning an object from the context function, it will be available as the third positional parameter of the resolvers:
new ApolloServer({
typeDefs,
resolvers: {
Query: {
books: (parent, args, context, info) => {
console.log(context.myProperty); // Will be `true`!
return books;
},
}
},
context: async ({ req }) => {
return {
myProperty: true
};
},
})
The Apollo Server documentation contains additional details on how to get started with GraphQL and Apollo Server.
The raw Markdown source of the documentation is available within the docs/ directory of this monorepo--to contribute, please use the Edit on GitHub buttons at the bottom of each page.
If you wish to develop or contribute to Apollo Server, we suggest the following:
Fork this repository
Install Direnv (a tool that automatically sets up environment variables in project directories) or nvm. We use nvm to ensure we're running the expected version of Node (and we use Direnv to install and run nvm automatically).
Install the Apollo Server project on your computer
git clone https://github.com/[your-user]/apollo-server
cd apollo-server
direnv allow # sets up nvm for you; if you installed nvm yourself, try `nvm install` instead
npm install
npm test
npm run pretest && npx jest packages/apollo-server-foo/src/__tests__/bar.test.ts. Note that you do need to re-compile TypeScript before each time you run a test, or changes across packages may not be picked up. Instead of running npm run pretest from scratch before each test run, you can also run tsc --build tsconfig.json --watch in another shell, or use the VSCode Run Build Task to run that for you.Are you stuck? Want to contribute? Come visit us in the Apollo community forum!
Apollo builds open-source software and a graph platform to unify GraphQL across your apps and services. We help you ship faster with:
Check out the Odyssey learning platform, the perfect place to start your GraphQL journey with videos and interactive code challenges. Join the Apollo Community to interact with and get technical help from the GraphQL community.
FAQs
Production ready GraphQL Server
The npm package apollo-server receives a total of 166,730 weekly downloads. As such, apollo-server popularity was classified as popular.
We found that apollo-server demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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