Neo4j GraphQL Workspace

A project template for using Apollo GraphQL with a Neo4j graph database.

Technologies 🛠️

The below technologies are necessary or recommended to get started with development:

• Install the Node.js runtime to use the JavaScript language for server programming
• Download Neo4j Desktop or the database version appropriate for your machine
• Install the Visual Studio Code editor
• Sign up for Apollo Studio to use their Explorer GraphQL IDE

Learning 🚀

Here is an evolving list of resources for learning more about the above technologies:

• 📘 Read
  • GraphQL API language
    • Why GraphQL?
    • Server and Client resources from Apollo GraphQL
  • Cypher graph query language
    • Comparing SQL with Cypher
    
    
• 🎥 Watch
  • GraphQL From the Ground Up by Ellen Shapiro
  • GraphQL: The Documentary
  
  
• ☑️ Try
  • Practical, hands-on trainings for learning GraphQL with Apollo Odyssey
  • SpaceX GraphQL API
  • GitHub GraphQL API

Workspaces 💼

Schema files, a server file, and npm scripts exist for both the neo4j-graphql-js and @neo4j/graphql libraries. The /schema directory for both contains a decomposition of the type definitions in this schema used by the GRANDstack Starter Kit.

• neo4j-graphql-js
  A GraphQL to Cypher query execution layer for Neo4j and JavaScript GraphQL implementations.

  • Documentation

• @neo4j/graphql
  Neo4j product beta of neo4j-graphql-js

  • Documentation

Dependencies 🌐

Run npm install in your terminal to install project dependencies. The following libraries are used to assist the development of Neo4j-GraphQL schemas:

• graphql-tag
  A JavaScript template literal tag that parses GraphQL queries.
  

• cypher-tag
  A JavaScript template literal tag for Cypher in GraphQL.
  

• @graphql-workspaces/cli
  A CLI for GraphQL workflow.
  

• @graphql-workspaces/load
  A wrapper around the load-files and merge modules from graphql-tools used to load and merge schema files.

Workflow 🔁

1. Modify the contents of the /schema directory.

2. Use the print command from @graphql-workspaces/cli to print the merged contents of the /schema directory to a schema.printed.graphql file next to it. Use the --watch or --validate arguments to watch for file changes or validate the merged type definitions.

   • Print: gql print schema
   • Watch: gql print schema --watch
   • Validate: gql print schema --validate

3. Use the below scripts to run the server file and start the API at localhost:4001/graphql or to print the result of the Neo4j-GraphQL augmentation of the merged type definitions in schema.printed.graphql.

4. Add, modify, or rename any files or directories in /schema and repeat workflow.

Scripts 📜

You can print the result of the schema augmentation process from either neo4j-graphql library using the following scripts which use the gql cli locally:

• npm run print:neo4j-graphql-js
• npm run print:neo4j-graphql

All other dependencies are used for building and running the server startup files with the following scripts:

• npm run start:neo4j-graphql-js
• npm run start:neo4j-graphql

Roadmap 🗺️

• Add example operations for both neo4j-graphql-js and @neo4j/graphql that use nested mutations to seed the database.
  • Provide the data available from https://cdn.neo4jlabs.com/data/grandstack_businesses.csv, similar to the GRANDstack Starter Kit, to each root mutation when pre-processing its argument values using a custom resolver function.
• Add examples of the authorization strategies available for neo4j-graphql-js and @neo4j/graphql.
• Use these utility functions from graphql-tools to support automated migration between integration libraries.
  • Look into adding some functions from @graphql-inspector/core to such a process.