silverstripe-framework/docs/en/02_Developer_Guides/19_GraphQL/07_tips_and_tricks.md

title	summary
Tips & Tricks	Miscellaneous useful tips for working with your GraphQL schema

Tips & Tricks

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Getting the type name for a model class

Often times, you'll need to know the name of the type given a class name. There's a bit of context to this.

Getting the type name at build time

If you need to know the name of the type during the build, e.g. creating the name of an operation, field, query, etc, you should use the Build::requireActiveBuild() accessor. This will get you the schema that is currently being built, and throw if no build is active. A more tolerant method is getActiveBuild() which will return null if no schema is being built.

Build::requireActiveBuild()->findOrMakeModel($className)->getName();

Getting the type name from within your app

If you need the type name during normal execution of your app, e.g. to display in your UI, you can rely on the cached typenames, which are persisted alongside your generated schema code.

Schema::create('default')->getTypeNameForClass($className);

Why is there a difference?

It is expensive to load all of the schema config. The getTypeNameForClass function avoids the need to load the config, and reads directly from the cache. To be clear, the following is functionally equivalent, but slow:

Schema::create('default')
  ->loadFromConfig()
  ->findOrMakeModel($className)
  ->getName();

Persisting queries

A common pattern in GraphQL APIs is to store queries on the server by an identifier. This helps save on bandwidth, as the client need not put a fully expressed query in the request body, but rather a simple identifier. Also, it allows you to whitelist only specific query IDs, and block all other ad-hoc, potentially malicious queries, which adds an extra layer of security to your API, particularly if it's public.

To implement persisted queries, you need an implementation of the SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider interface. By default, three are provided, which cover most use cases:

• FileProvider: Store your queries in a flat JSON file on the local filesystem.
• HTTPProvider: Store your queries on a remote server and reference a JSON file by URL.
• JSONStringProvider: Store your queries as hardcoded JSON

Configuring query mapping providers

All of these implementations can be configured through Injector.

[notice] Note that each schema gets its own set of persisted queries. In these examples, we're using the defaultschema. [/notice]

FileProvider

SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
  SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider:
    class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\FileProvider
    properties:
     schemaMapping:
       default: '/var/www/project/query-mapping.json'

A flat file in the path /var/www/project/query-mapping.json should contain something like:

{"someUniqueID":"query{validateToken{Valid Message Code}}"}

[notice] The file path must be absolute. [/notice]

HTTPProvider

SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
  SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider:
    class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\HTTPProvider
    properties:
     schemaMapping:
       default: 'http://example.com/myqueries.json'

A flat file at the URL http://example.com/myqueries.json should contain something like:

{"someUniqueID":"query{readMembers{Name+Email}}"}

JSONStringProvider

SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
  SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\PersistedQueryMappingProvider:
    class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\PersistedQuery\HTTPProvider
    properties:
     schemaMapping:
       default: '{"myMutation":"mutation{createComment($comment:String!){Comment}}"}'

The queries are hardcoded into the configuration.

Requesting queries by identifier

To access a persisted query, simply pass an id parameter in the request in lieu of query.

GET http://example.com/graphql?id=someID

[notice] Note that if you pass query along with id, an exception will be thrown. [/notice]

Query caching (Caution: EXPERIMENTAL)

The QueryCachingMiddleware class is an experimental cache layer that persists the results of a GraphQL query to limit unnecessary calls to the database. The query cache is automatically expired when any DataObject that it relies on is modified. The entire cache will be discarded on ?flush requests.

To implement query caching, add the middleware to your QueryHandlerInterface

SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
  SilverStripe\GraphQL\QueryHandler\QueryHandlerInterface.default:
    class: SilverStripe\GraphQL\QueryHandler\QueryHandler
    properties:
      Middlewares:
        cache: '%$SilverStripe\GraphQL\Middleware\QueryCachingMiddleware'

And you will also need to apply an extension to all DataObjects:

SilverStripe\ORM\DataObject:
  extensions:
    - SilverStripe\GraphQL\Extensions\QueryRecorderExtension

[warning] This feature is experimental, and has not been thoroughly evaluated for security. Use at your own risk. [/warning]

Schema introspection

Some GraphQL clients such as Apollo require some level of introspection into the schema. While introspection is part of the GraphQL spec, this module provides a limited API for fetching it via non-graphql endpoints. By default, the graphql/ controller provides a types action that will return the type schema (serialised as JSON) dynamically.

GET http://example.com/graphql/types

{
   "data":{
      "__schema":{
         "types":[
            {
               "kind":"OBJECT",
               "name":"Query",
               "possibleTypes":null
            }
            // etc ...
         ]
      }
   }

As your schema grows, introspecting it dynamically may have a performance hit. Alternatively, if you have the silverstripe/assets module installed (as it is in the default SilverStripe installation), GraphQL can cache your schema as a flat file in the assets/ directory. To enable this, simply set the cache_types_in_filesystem setting to true on SilverStripe\GraphQL\Controller. Once enabled, a types.graphql file will be written to your assets/ directory on flush.

When cache_types_in_filesystem is enabled, it is recommended that you remove the extension that provides the dynamic introspection endpoint.

use SilverStripe\GraphQL\Controller;
use SilverStripe\GraphQL\Extensions\IntrospectionProvider;

Controller::remove_extension(IntrospectionProvider::class);