graphql-yoga

What is graphql-yoga?

graphql-yoga is a fully-featured GraphQL server that is easy to set up and use. It is built on top of GraphQL.js and provides a simple yet powerful API for building GraphQL servers. It comes with out-of-the-box support for features like subscriptions, file uploads, and more.

What are graphql-yoga's main functionalities?

Basic Server Setup

This code sets up a basic GraphQL server with a single query 'hello' that returns a string. The server is started and listens on port 4000.

const { createServer } = require('graphql-yoga');
const typeDefs = `
  type Query {
    hello: String!
  }
`;
const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    hello: () => 'Hello, world!',
  },
};
const server = createServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
server.start(() => console.log('Server is running on http://localhost:4000'));

Subscriptions

This code demonstrates how to set up a GraphQL server with subscriptions. It uses the 'graphql-subscriptions' package to handle real-time updates. A new message is published every second.

const { createServer } = require('graphql-yoga');
const { PubSub } = require('graphql-subscriptions');
const pubsub = new PubSub();
const typeDefs = `
  type Query {
    hello: String!
  }
  type Subscription {
    newMessage: String!
  }
`;
const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    hello: () => 'Hello, world!',
  },
  Subscription: {
    newMessage: {
      subscribe: () => pubsub.asyncIterator(['NEW_MESSAGE']),
    },
  },
};
const server = createServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
server.start(() => console.log('Server is running on http://localhost:4000'));
setInterval(() => {
  pubsub.publish('NEW_MESSAGE', { newMessage: 'Hello, world!' });
}, 1000);

File Uploads

This code sets up a GraphQL server that supports file uploads. It defines a custom scalar 'Upload' and a mutation 'singleUpload' that handles the file upload process.

const { createServer } = require('graphql-yoga');
const typeDefs = `
  scalar Upload
  type Query {
    hello: String!
  }
  type Mutation {
    singleUpload(file: Upload!): String!
  }
`;
const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    hello: () => 'Hello, world!',
  },
  Mutation: {
    singleUpload: async (parent, { file }) => {
      const { createReadStream, filename } = await file;
      createReadStream().pipe(fs.createWriteStream(path.join(__dirname, filename)));
      return filename;
    },
  },
};
const server = createServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
server.start(() => console.log('Server is running on http://localhost:4000'));

Other packages similar to graphql-yoga

apollo-server

Apollo Server is a community-driven, open-source GraphQL server that works with any GraphQL schema. It provides a robust set of features, including caching, subscriptions, and more. Compared to graphql-yoga, Apollo Server offers more advanced features and integrations but may require more configuration.

express-graphql

express-graphql is a minimalistic GraphQL HTTP server middleware for Express. It is easy to set up and use, making it a good choice for simple applications. However, it lacks some of the advanced features provided by graphql-yoga, such as built-in subscriptions and file uploads.

graphql-koa

graphql-koa is a GraphQL server middleware for Koa. It provides a simple way to integrate GraphQL into a Koa application. While it is similar to express-graphql in terms of simplicity, it does not offer the same level of built-in features as graphql-yoga.

README

graphql-yoga

Fully-featured GraphQL Server with focus on easy setup, performance & great developer experience

Overview

• Easiest way to run a GraphQL server: Sensible defaults & includes everything you need with minimal setup.
• Includes Subscriptions: Built-in support for GraphQL subscriptions using WebSockets.
• Compatible: Works with all GraphQL clients (Apollo, Relay...) and fits seamless in your GraphQL workflow.

graphql-yoga is based on the following libraries & tools:

• express/apollo-server: Performant, extensible web server framework
• graphql-subscriptions/subscriptions-transport-ws: GraphQL subscriptions server
• graphql.js/graphql-tools: GraphQL engine & schema helpers
• graphql-playground: Interactive GraphQL IDE

Features

• GraphQL spec-compliant
• File upload
• GraphQL Subscriptions
• TypeScript typings
• GraphQL Playground
• Extensible via Express middlewares
• Schema directives
• Apollo Tracing
• Accepts both application/json and application/graphql content-types
• Runs everywhere: Can be deployed via now, up, AWS Lambda, Heroku etc.
• Supports middleware out of the box.

Install

yarn add graphql-yoga

Usage

Quickstart (Hosted demo)

import { GraphQLServer } from 'graphql-yoga'
// ... or using `require()`
// const { GraphQLServer } = require('graphql-yoga')

const typeDefs = `
  type Query {
    hello(name: String): String!
  }
`

const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    hello: (_, { name }) => `Hello ${name || 'World'}`,
  },
}

const server = new GraphQLServer({ typeDefs, resolvers })
server.start(() => console.log('Server is running on localhost:4000'))

To get started with graphql-yoga, follow the instructions in the READMEs of the examples.

API

GraphQLServer

constructor(props: Props): GraphQLServer

The props argument accepts the following fields:

Key	Type	Default	Note
typeDefs	String or Function or DocumentNode or array of previous	null	Contains GraphQL type definitions in SDL or file path to type definitions (required if schema is not provided *)
resolvers	Object	null	Contains resolvers for the fields specified in typeDefs (required if schema is not provided *)
resolverValidationOptions	Object	null	Object which controls the resolver validation behaviour (see "Generating a schema") for more information
schema	Object	null	An instance of GraphQLSchema (required if typeDefs and resolvers are not provided *)
context	Object or Function	{}	Contains custom data being passed through your resolver chain. This can be passed in as an object, or as a Function with the signature (req: ContextParameters) => any **
schemaDirectives	Object	null	Apollo Server schema directives that allow for transforming schema types, fields, and arguments
middlewares	array of Middleware	[]	A list of GraphQLMiddleware middleware.

(*) There are two major ways of providing the schema information to the constructor:

1. Provide typeDefs and resolvers and omit the schema, in this case graphql-yoga will construct the GraphQLSchema instance using makeExecutableSchema from graphql-tools.
2. Provide the schema directly and omit typeDefs and resolvers.

(**) Notice that the req argument is an object of the shape { request, response, connection } which either carries a request: Request property (when it's a Query/Mutation resolver), response: Response property (when it's a Query/Mutation resolver), or a connection: SubscriptionOptions property (when it's a Subscription resolver). Request is imported from Express.js. Response is imported from Express.js aswell. SubscriptionOptions is from the graphql-subscriptions package. SubscriptionOptions are getting the connectionParams automatically injected under SubscriptionOptions.context.[CONNECTION_PARAMETER_NAME]

Here is example of creating a new server:

const typeDefs = `
  type Query {
    hello(name: String): String!
  }
`

const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    hello: (_, { name }) => `Hello ${name || 'World'}`,
  },
}

const server = new GraphQLServer({ typeDefs, resolvers })

start(options: Options, callback: ((options: Options) => void) = (() => null)): Promise<void>

Once your GraphQLServer is instantiated, you can call the start method on it. It takes two arguments: options, the options object defined above, and callback, a function that's invoked right before the server is started. As an example, the callback can be used to print information that the server has started.

The options object has the following fields:

Key	Type	Default	Note
cors	Object	null	Contains configuration options for cors
tracing	Boolean or TracingOptions	'http-header'	Indicates whether Apollo Tracing should be enabled or disabled for your server (if a string is provided, accepted values are: 'enabled', 'disabled', 'http-header')
port	Number or String	4000	Determines the port your server will be listening on (note that you can also specify the port by setting the PORT environment variable)
endpoint	String	'/'	Defines the HTTP endpoint of your server
subscriptions	Object or String or false	'/'	Defines the subscriptions (websocket) endpoint for your server; accepts an object with subscription server options path, keepAlive, onConnect and onDisconnect; setting to false disables subscriptions completely
playground	String or false	'/'	Defines the endpoint where you can invoke the Playground; setting to false disables the playground endpoint
uploads	UploadOptions or false or undefined	null	Provides information about upload limits; the object can have any combination of the following three keys: maxFieldSize, maxFileSize, maxFiles; each of these have values of type Number; setting to false disables file uploading
https	HttpsOptions or undefined	undefined	Enables HTTPS support with a key/cert
getEndpoint	String or Boolean	false	Adds a graphql HTTP GET endpoint to your server (defaults to endpoint if true). Used for leveraging CDN level caching.

Additionally, the options object exposes these apollo-server options:

Key	Type	Note
cacheControl	Boolean	Enable extension that returns Cache Control data in the response
formatError	Number	A function to apply to every error before sending the response to clients. Defaults to defaultErrorFormatter. Please beware, that if you override this, requestId and code on errors won't automatically be propagated to your yoga server
logFunction	LogFunction	A function called for logging events such as execution times
rootValue	any	RootValue passed to GraphQL execution
validationRules	Array of functions	Additional GraphQL validation rules to be applied to client-specified queries
fieldResolver	GraphQLFieldResolver	Specify a custom default field resolver function
formatParams	Function	A function applied to each query in a batch to format parameters before execution
formatResponse	Function	A function applied to each response after execution
debug	boolean	Print additional debug logging if execution errors occur

const options = {
  port: 8000,
  endpoint: '/graphql',
  subscriptions: '/subscriptions',
  playground: '/playground',
}

server.start(options, ({ port }) =>
  console.log(
    `Server started, listening on port ${port} for incoming requests.`,
  ),
)

PubSub

See the original documentation in graphql-subscriptions.

Endpoints

Examples

There are three examples demonstrating how to quickly get started with graphql-yoga:

• hello-world: Basic setup for building a schema and allowing for a hello query.
• subscriptions: Basic setup for using subscriptions with a counter that increments every 2 seconds and triggers a subscription.
• fullstack: Fullstack example based on create-react-app demonstrating how to query data from graphql-yoga with Apollo Client 2.0.

Workflow

Once your graphql-yoga server is running, you can use GraphQL Playground out of the box – typically running on localhost:4000. (Read here for more information.)

Deployment

now

To deploy your graphql-yoga server with now, follow these instructions:

1. Download Now Desktop
2. Navigate to the root directory of your graphql-yoga server
3. Run now in your terminal

Heroku

To deploy your graphql-yoga server with Heroku, follow these instructions:

1. Download and install the Heroku Command Line Interface (previously Heroku Toolbelt)
2. Log in to the Heroku CLI with heroku login
3. Navigate to the root directory of your graphql-yoga server
4. Create the Heroku instance by executing heroku create
5. Deploy your GraphQL server by executing git push heroku master

up (Coming soon 🔜 )

AWS Lambda (Coming soon 🔜 )

FAQ

How does graphql-yoga compare to apollo-server and other tools?

As mentioned above, graphql-yoga is built on top of a variety of other packages, such as graphql.js, express and apollo-server. Each of these provides a certain piece of functionality required for building a GraphQL server.

Using these packages individually incurs overhead in the setup process and requires you to write a lot of boilerplate. graphql-yoga abstracts away the initial complexity and required boilerplate and lets you get started quickly with a set of sensible defaults for your server configuration.

graphql-yoga is like create-react-app for building GraphQL servers.

Can't I just setup my own GraphQL server using express and graphql.js?

graphql-yoga is all about convenience and a great "Getting Started" experience by abstracting away the complexity that comes when you're building your own GraphQL server from scratch. It's a pragmatic approach to bootstrap a GraphQL server, much like how create-react-app removes friction when first starting out with React.

Whenever the defaults of graphql-yoga are too tight a corset for you, you can simply eject from it and use the tooling it's built upon - there's no lock-in or any other kind of magic going on preventing you from doing this.

How to eject from the standard express setup?

The core value of graphql-yoga is that you don't have to write the boilerplate required to configure your express.js application. However, once you need to add more customized behaviour to your server, the default configuration provided by graphql-yoga might not suit your use case any more. For example, it might be the case that you want to add more custom middleware to your server, like for logging or error reporting.

For these cases, GraphQLServer exposes the express.Application directly via its express property:

server.express.use(myMiddleware())

Middlewares can also be added specifically to the GraphQL endpoint route, by using:

server.express.post(server.options.endpoint, myMiddleware())

Any middlewares you add to that route, will be added right before the apollo-server-express middleware.

Help & Community

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