81
votes

I want to get the schema from the server. I can get all entities with the types but I'm unable to get the properties.

Getting all types:

query {
  __schema {
    queryType {
      fields {
        name
        type {
          kind
          ofType {
            kind
            name
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

How to get the properties for type:

__type(name: "Person") {
    kind
    name
    fields {
      name
      type {
        kind
        name
        description
      }
    }
  }

How can I get all types with the properties in only 1 request? Or ever better: How can I get the whole schema with the mutators, enums, types ...

12
I ended using the introspectionQuery from 'graphql'; as described at the bottom. It's fine.Aleksandrenko

12 Answers

113
votes

Update

Using graphql-cli is now the recommended workflow to get and update your schema.

The following commands will get you started:

# install via NPM
npm install -g graphql-cli

# Setup your .graphqlconfig file (configure endpoints + schema path)
graphql init

# Download the schema from the server
graphql get-schema

You can even listen for schema changes and continuously update your schema by running:

graphql get-schema --watch

In case you just want to download the GraphQL schema, use the following approach:

The easiest way to get a GraphQL schema is using the CLI tool get-graphql-schema.

You can install it via NPM:

npm install -g get-graphql-schema

There are two ways to get your schema. 1) GraphQL IDL format or 2) JSON introspection query format.

GraphQL IDL format

get-graphql-schema ENDPOINT_URL > schema.graphql

JSON introspection format

get-graphql-schema ENDPOINT_URL --json > schema.json

or

get-graphql-schema ENDPOINT_URL -j > schema.json

For more information you can refer to the following tutorial: How to download the GraphQL IDL Schema

70
votes

This is the query that GraphiQL uses (network capture):

query IntrospectionQuery {
  __schema {
    queryType {
      name
    }
    mutationType {
      name
    }
    subscriptionType {
      name
    }
    types {
      ...FullType
    }
    directives {
      name
      description
      locations
      args {
        ...InputValue
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment FullType on __Type {
  kind
  name
  description
  fields(includeDeprecated: true) {
    name
    description
    args {
      ...InputValue
    }
    type {
      ...TypeRef
    }
    isDeprecated
    deprecationReason
  }
  inputFields {
    ...InputValue
  }
  interfaces {
    ...TypeRef
  }
  enumValues(includeDeprecated: true) {
    name
    description
    isDeprecated
    deprecationReason
  }
  possibleTypes {
    ...TypeRef
  }
}

fragment InputValue on __InputValue {
  name
  description
  type {
    ...TypeRef
  }
  defaultValue
}

fragment TypeRef on __Type {
  kind
  name
  ofType {
    kind
    name
    ofType {
      kind
      name
      ofType {
        kind
        name
        ofType {
          kind
          name
          ofType {
            kind
            name
            ofType {
              kind
              name
              ofType {
                kind
                name
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
17
votes

You can use GraphQL-JS's introspection query to get everything you'd like to know about the schema:

import { introspectionQuery } from 'graphql';

If you want just the information for types, you can use this:

{
    __schema: {
        types: {
            ...fullType
        }
    }
}

Which uses the following fragment from the introspection query:

fragment FullType on __Type {
    kind
    name
    description
    fields(includeDeprecated: true) {
      name
      description
      args {
        ...InputValue
      }
      type {
        ...TypeRef
      }
      isDeprecated
      deprecationReason
    }
    inputFields {
      ...InputValue
    }
    interfaces {
      ...TypeRef
    }
    enumValues(includeDeprecated: true) {
      name
      description
      isDeprecated
      deprecationReason
    }
    possibleTypes {
      ...TypeRef
    }
  }
  fragment InputValue on __InputValue {
    name
    description
    type { ...TypeRef }
    defaultValue
  }
  fragment TypeRef on __Type {
    kind
    name
    ofType {
      kind
      name
      ofType {
        kind
        name
        ofType {
          kind
          name
          ofType {
            kind
            name
            ofType {
              kind
              name
              ofType {
                kind
                name
                ofType {
                  kind
                  name
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
`;

If that seems complicated, it's because fields can be arbitrarility deeply wrapped in nonNulls and Lists, which means that technically even the query above does not reflect the full schema if your fields are wrapped in more than 7 layers (which probably isn't the case).

You can see the source code for introspectionQuery here.

11
votes

Using apollo cli:

npx apollo schema:download --endpoint=http://localhost:4000/graphql schema.json
5
votes

You can use the Hasura's graphqurl utility

npm install -g graphqurl

gq <endpoint> --introspect > schema.graphql

# or if you want it in json
gq <endpoint> --introspect --format json > schema.json

Full documentation: https://github.com/hasura/graphqurl

4
votes

You can download a remote GraphQL server's schema with the following command. When the command succeeds, you should see a new file named schema.json in the current working directory.

~$ npx apollo-cli download-schema $GRAPHQL_URL --output schema.json

3
votes

You can use IntelliJ plugin JS GraphQL then IDEA will ask you create two files "graphql.config.json" and "graphql.schema.json"

Then you can edit "graphql.config.json" to point to your local or remote GraphQL server:

"schema": {
"README_request" : "To request the schema from a url instead, remove the 'file' JSON property above (and optionally delete the default graphql.schema.json file).",
"request": {
  "url" : "http://localhost:4000",
  "method" : "POST",
  "README_postIntrospectionQuery" : "Whether to POST an introspectionQuery to the url. If the url always returns the schema JSON, set to false and consider using GET",
  "postIntrospectionQuery" : true,
  "README_options" : "See the 'Options' section at https://github.com/then/then-request",
  "options" : {
    "headers": {
      "user-agent" : "JS GraphQL"
    }
  }
}

After that IDEA plugin will auto load schema from GraphQL server and show the schema json in the console like this:

Loaded schema from 'http://localhost:4000': {"data":{"__schema":{"queryType":{"name":"Query"},"mutationType":{"name":"Mutation"},"subscriptionType":null,"types":[{"kind":"OBJECT","name":"Query","description":"","fields":[{"name":"launche
2
votes

Refer to https://stackoverflow.com/a/42010467/10189759

Would like to point out that if authentications are needed, that you probably cannot just use the config file generated from graphql init

You might have to do something like this, for example, using the github graphql API

{
  "projects": {
    "graphqlProjectTestingGraphql": {
      "schemaPath": "schema.graphql",
      "extensions": {
        "endpoints": {
          "dev": {
            "url": "https://api.github.com/graphql",
            "headers": {
              "Authorization": "Bearer <Your token here>"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
2
votes

You can use GraphQL-Codegen with the ast-plugin

npm install --save graphql
npm install --save-dev @graphql-codegen/cli
npx graphql-codegen init

Follow the steps to generate the codegen.yml file

Once the tool is installed, you can use the plugin to download the schema which is schema-ast

The best is to follow the instruction on the page to install it… but basically:

npm install --save-dev @graphql-codegen/schema-ast

Then configure the codegen.yml file to set which schema(s) is/are the source of truth and where to put the downloaded schema(s) file:

schema:
  - 'http://localhost:3000/graphql'
generates:
  path/to/file.graphql:
    plugins:
      - schema-ast
    config:
      includeDirectives: true
1
votes

Somehow I wasn't able to get any of the suggested CLI tools to output the schema in GraphQL's Schema Definition Language (SDL) instead of the introspection result JSON. I ended up throwing together a really quick Node script to make the GraphQL library do it for me:

const fs = require("fs");
const { buildClientSchema, getIntrospectionQuery, printSchema } = require("graphql");
const fetch = require("node-fetch");

async function saveSchema(endpoint, filename) {
    const response = await fetch(endpoint, {
        method: "POST",
        headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
        body: JSON.stringify({ query: getIntrospectionQuery() })
    });
    const graphqlSchemaObj = buildClientSchema((await response.json()).data);
    const sdlString = printSchema(graphqlSchemaObj);
    fs.writeFileSync(filename, sdlString);
}

saveSchema("https://example.com/graphql", "schema.graphql");

getIntrospectionQuery() has the complete introspection query you need to get everything, and then buildClientSchema() and printSchema() turns the JSON mess into GraphQL SDL.

Wouldn't be too difficult to make this into a CLI tool itself but that feels like overkill.

0
votes

If you want to do it by your self, read these code:

There is a modular state-of-art tool 「graphql-cli」, consider looking at it. It uses package 「graphql」's buildClientSchema to build IDL .graphql file from introspection data.