--- sidebar: auto --- # Guide to Super Graph Without writing a line of code get an instant high-performance GraphQL API for your Ruby-on-Rails app. Super Graph will automatically understand your apps database and expose a secure, fast and complete GraphQL API for it. Built in support for Rails authentication and JWT tokens. ## Features - Works with Rails database schemas - Automatically learns schemas and relationships - Belongs-To, One-To-Many and Many-To-Many table relationships - Full text search and Aggregations - Rails Auth supported (Redis, Memcache, Cookie) - JWT tokens supported (Auth0, etc) - Highly optimized and fast Postgres SQL queries - Configure with a simple config file - High performance GO codebase - Tiny docker image and low memory requirements ## Try it out ```bash # download super graph source git clone https://github.com/dosco/super-graph.git # setup the demo rails app & database ./demo setup # run the demo ./demo run # signin to the demo app (user1@demo.com / 123456) open http://localhost:3000 # try the super graph web ui open http://localhost:8080 ``` ::: warning DEMO REQUIREMENTS This demo requires `docker` you can either install it using `brew` or from the docker website [https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/](https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/) ::: #### Trying out GraphQL We currently support the `query` action which is used for fetching data. Support for `mutation` and `subscriptions` is work in progress. For example the below GraphQL query would fetch two products that belong to the current user where the price is greater than 10 #### GQL Query ```graphql query { users { id email picture : avatar password full_name products(limit: 2, where: { price: { gt: 10 } }) { id name description price } } } ``` The above GraphQL query returns the JSON result below. It handles all kinds of complexity without you having to writing a line of code. For example there is a while greater than `gt` and a limit clause on a child field. And the `avatar` field is renamed to `picture`. The `password` field is blocked and not returned. Finally the relationship between the `users` table and the `products` table is auto discovered and used. #### JSON Result ```json { "data": { "users": [ { "id": 1, "email": "odilia@west.info", "picture": "https://robohash.org/simur.png?size=300x300", "full_name": "Edwin Orn", "products": [ { "id": 16, "name": "Sierra Nevada Style Ale", "description": "Belgian Abbey, 92 IBU, 4.7%, 17.4°Blg", "price": 16.47 }, ... ] } ] } } ``` #### Try with an authenticated user In development mode you can use the `X-User-ID: 4` header to set a user id so you don't have to worries about cookies etc. This can be set using the *HTTP Headers* tab at the bottom of the web UI you'll see when you visit the above link. You can also directly run queries from the commandline like below. #### Querying the GQL endpoint ```bash # fetch the response json directly from the endpoint using user id 5 curl 'http://localhost:8080/api/v1/graphql' \ -H 'content-type: application/json' \ -H 'X-User-ID: 5' \ --data-binary '{"query":"{ products { name price users { email }}}"}' ``` ## How to GraphQL GraphQL (GQL) is a simple query syntax that's fast replacing REST APIs. GQL is great since it allows web developers to fetch the exact data that they need without depending on changes to backend code. Also if you squint hard enough it looks a little bit like JSON :smiley: The below query will fetch an `users` name, email and avatar image (renamed as picture). If you also need the users `id` then just add it to the query. ```graphql query { user { full_name email picture : avatar } } ``` ### Fetching data To fetch a specific `product` by it's ID you can use the `id` argument. The real name id field will be resolved automatically so this query will work even if your id column is named something like `product_id`. ```graphql query { products(id: 3) { name } } ``` Postgres also supports full text search using a TSV index. Super Graph makes it easy to use this full text search capability using the `search` argument. ```graphql query { products(search "amazing") { name } } ``` ### Complex queries (Where) Super Graph support complex queries where you can add filters, ordering,offsets and limits on the query. #### Logical Operators Name | Example | Explained | --- | --- | --- | and | price : { and : { gt: 10.5, lt: 20 } | price > 10.5 AND price < 20 or | or : { price : { greater_than : 20 }, quantity: { gt : 0 } } | price >= 20 OR quantity > 0 not | not: { or : { quantity : { eq: 0 }, price : { eq: 0 } } } | NOT (quantity = 0 OR price = 0) #### Other conditions Name | Example | Explained | --- | --- | --- | eq, equals | id : { eq: 100 } | id = 100 neq, not_equals | id: { not_equals: 100 } | id != 100 gt, greater_than | id: { gt: 100 } | id > 100 lt, lesser_than | id: { gt: 100 } | id < 100 gte, greater_or_equals | id: { gte: 100 } | id >= 100 lte, lesser_or_equals | id: { lesser_or_equals: 100 } | id <= 100 in | status: { in: [ "A", "B", "C" ] } | status IN ('A', 'B', 'C) nin, not_in | status: { in: [ "A", "B", "C" ] } | status IN ('A', 'B', 'C) like | name: { like "phil%" } | Names starting with 'phil' nlike, not_like | name: { nlike "v%m" } | Not names starting with 'v' and ending with 'm' ilike | name: { ilike "%wOn" } | Names ending with 'won' case-insensitive nilike, not_ilike | name: { nilike "%wOn" } | Not names ending with 'won' case-insensitive similar | name: { similar: "%(b\|d)%" } | [Similar Docs](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9/functions-matching.html#FUNCTIONS-SIMILARTO-REGEXP) nsimilar, not_similar | name: { nsimilar: "%(b\|d)%" } | [Not Similar Docs](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9/functions-matching.html#FUNCTIONS-SIMILARTO-REGEXP) has_key | column: { has_key: 'b' } | Does JSON column contain this key has_key_any | column: { has_key_any: [ a, b ] } | Does JSON column contain any of these keys has_key_all | column: [ a, b ] | Does JSON column contain all of this keys contains | column: { contains: [1, 2, 4] } | Is this array/json column a subset of value contained_in | column: { contains: "{'a':1, 'b':2}" } | Is this array/json column a subset of these value is_null | column: { is_null: true } | Is column value null or not ### Aggregation (Max, Count, etc) You will often find the need to fetch aggregated values from the database such as `count`, `max`, `min`, etc. This is simple to do with GraphQL, just prefix the aggregation name to the field name that you want to aggregrate like `count_id`. The below query will group products by name and find the minimum price for each group. Notice the `min_price` field we're adding `min_` to price. ```graphql query { products { name min_price } } ``` Name | Explained | --- | --- | avg | Average value count | Count the values max | Maximum value min | Minimum value stddev | [Standard Deviation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation) stddev_pop | Population Standard Deviation stddev_samp | Sample Standard Deviation variance | [Variance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance) var_pop | Population Standard Variance var_samp | Sample Standard variance All kinds of queries are possible with GraphQL. Below is an example that uses a lot of the features available. Comments `# hello` are also valid within queries. ```graphql query { products( # returns only 30 items limit: 30, # starts from item 10, commented out for now # offset: 10, # orders the response items by highest price order_by: { price: desc }, # no duplicate prices returned distinct: [ price ] # only items with an id >= 30 and < 30 are returned where: { id: { and: { greater_or_equals: 20, lt: 28 } } }) { id name price } } ``` ### Using variables Variables (`$product_id`) and their values (`"product_id": 5`) can be passed along side the GraphQL query. Using variables makes for better client side code as well as improved server side SQL query caching. The build-in web-ui also supports setting variables. Not having to manipulate your GraphQL query string to insert values into it makes for cleaner and better client side code. ```javascript // Define the request object keeping the query and the variables seperate var req = { query: '{ product(id: $product_id) { name } }' , variables: { "product_id": 5 } } // Use the fetch api to make the query fetch('http://localhost:8080/api/v1/graphql', { method: 'POST', headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }, body: JSON.stringify(req), }) .then(res => res.json()) .then(res => console.log(res.data)); ``` ### Full text search Every app these days needs search. Enought his often means reaching for something heavy like Solr. While this will work why add complexity to your infrastructure when Postgres has really great and fast full text search built-in. And since it's part of Postgres it's also available in Super Graph. ```graphql query { products( # Search for all products that contain 'ale' or some version of it search: "ale" # Return only matches where the price is less than 10 where: { price: { lt: 10 } } # Use the search_rank to order from the best match to the worst order_by: { search_rank: desc }) { id name search_rank search_headline_description } } ``` This query will use the `tsvector` column in your database table to search for products that contain the query phrase or some version of it. To get the internal relevance ranking for the search results using the `search_rank` field. And to get the highlighted context within any of the table columns you can use the `search_headline_` field prefix. For example `search_headline_name` will return the contents of the products name column which contains the matching query marked with the `` html tags. ```json { "data": { "products": [ { "id": 11, "name": "Maharaj", "search_rank": 0.243171, "search_headline_description": "Blue Moon, Vegetable Beer, Willamette, 1007 - German Ale, 48 IBU, 7.9%, 11.8°Blg" }, { "id": 12, "name": "Schneider Aventinus", "search_rank": 0.243171, "search_headline_description": "Dos Equis, Wood-aged Beer, Magnum, 1099 - Whitbread Ale, 15 IBU, 9.5%, 13.0°Blg" }, ... ``` #### Adding search to your Rails app It's really easy to enable Postgres search on any table within your database schema. All it takes is to create the following migration. In the below example we add a full-text search to the `products` table. ```ruby class AddSearchColumn < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.1] def self.up add_column :products, :tsv, :tsvector add_index :products, :tsv, using: "gin" say_with_time("Adding trigger to update the ts_vector column") do execute <<-SQL CREATE FUNCTION products_tsv_trigger() RETURNS trigger AS $$ begin new.tsv := setweight(to_tsvector('pg_catalog.english', coalesce(new.name,'')), 'A') || setweight(to_tsvector('pg_catalog.english', coalesce(new.description,'')), 'B'); return new; end $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql; CREATE TRIGGER tsvectorupdate BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON products FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE products_tsv_trigger(); SQL end end def self.down say_with_time("Removing trigger to update the tsv column") do execute <<-SQL DROP TRIGGER tsvectorupdate ON products SQL end remove_index :products, :tsv remove_column :products, :tsv end end ``` ## Authentication You can only have one type of auth enabled. You can either pick Rails or JWT. ### Rails Auth (Devise / Warden) Almost all Rails apps use Devise or Warden for authentication. Once the user is authenticated a session is created with the users ID. The session can either be stored in the users browser as a cookie, memcache or redis. If memcache or redis is used then a cookie is set in the users browser with just the session id. Super Graph can handle all these variations including the old and new session formats. Just enable the right `auth` config based on how your rails app is configured. #### Cookie session store ```yaml auth: type: rails cookie: _app_session rails: # Rails version this is used for reading the # various cookies formats. version: 5.2 # Found in 'Rails.application.config.secret_key_base' secret_key_base: 0a248500a64c01184edb4d7ad3a805488f8097ac761b76aaa6c17c01dcb7af03a2f18ba61b2868134b9c7b79a122bc0dadff4367414a2d173297bfea92be5566 ``` #### Memcache session store ```yaml auth: type: rails cookie: _app_session rails: # Memcache remote cookie store. url: memcache://127.0.0.1 ``` #### Redis session store ```yaml auth: type: rails cookie: _app_session rails: # Redis remote cookie store url: redis://127.0.0.1:6379 password: "" max_idle: 80 max_active: 12000 ``` ### JWT Token Auth ```yaml auth: type: jwt jwt: # the two providers are 'auth0' and 'none' provider: auth0 secret: abc335bfcfdb04e50db5bb0a4d67ab9 public_key_file: /secrets/public_key.pem public_key_type: ecdsa #rsa ``` For JWT tokens we currently support tokens from a provider like Auth0 or if you have a custom solution then we look for the `user_id` in the `subject` claim of of the `id token`. If you pick Auth0 then we derive two variables from the token `user_id` and `user_id_provider` for to use in your filters. We can get the JWT token either from the `authorization` header where we expect it to be a `bearer` token or if `cookie` is specified then we look there. For validation a `secret` or a public key (ecdsa or rsa) is required. When using public keys they have to be in a PEM format file. ## Easy to setup Configuration files can either be in YAML or JSON their names are derived from the `GO_ENV` variable, for example `GO_ENV=prod` will cause the `prod.yaml` config file to be used. or `GO_ENV=dev` will use the `dev.yaml`. A path to look for the config files in can be specified using the `-path ` command line argument. We're tried to ensure that the config file is self documenting and easy to work with. ```yaml app_name: "Super Graph Development" host_port: 0.0.0.0:8080 web_ui: true debug_level: 1 # enabling tracing also disables query caching enable_tracing: true # Throw a 401 on auth failure for queries that need auth # valid values: always, per_query, never auth_fail_block: never # Postgres related environment Variables # SG_DATABASE_HOST # SG_DATABASE_PORT # SG_DATABASE_USER # SG_DATABASE_PASSWORD # Auth related environment Variables # SG_AUTH_RAILS_COOKIE_SECRET_KEY_BASE # SG_AUTH_RAILS_REDIS_URL # SG_AUTH_RAILS_REDIS_PASSWORD # SG_AUTH_JWT_PUBLIC_KEY_FILE # inflections: # person: people # sheep: sheep auth: # Can be 'rails' or 'jwt' type: rails cookie: _app_session # Comment this out if you want to disable setting # the user_id via a header. Good for testing header: X-User-ID rails: # Rails version this is used for reading the # various cookies formats. version: 5.2 # Found in 'Rails.application.config.secret_key_base' secret_key_base: 0a248500a64c01184edb4d7ad3a805488f8097ac761b76aaa6c17c01dcb7af03a2f18ba61b2868134b9c7b79a122bc0dadff4367414a2d173297bfea92be5566 # Remote cookie store. (memcache or redis) # url: redis://127.0.0.1:6379 # password: test # max_idle: 80, # max_active: 12000, # In most cases you don't need these # salt: "encrypted cookie" # sign_salt: "signed encrypted cookie" # auth_salt: "authenticated encrypted cookie" # jwt: # provider: auth0 # secret: abc335bfcfdb04e50db5bb0a4d67ab9 # public_key_file: /secrets/public_key.pem # public_key_type: ecdsa #rsa database: type: postgres host: db port: 5432 dbname: app_development user: postgres password: '' # pool_size: 10 # max_retries: 0 # log_level: "debug" # Define variables here that you want to use in filters variables: account_id: "select account_id from users where id = $user_id" # Define defaults to for the field key and values below defaults: filter: ["{ user_id: { eq: $user_id } }"] # Fields and table names that you wish to block blacklist: - ar_internal_metadata - schema_migrations - secret - password - encrypted - token fields: - name: users # This filter will overwrite defaults.filter filter: ["{ id: { eq: $user_id } }"] - name: products # Multiple filters are AND'd together filter: [ "{ price: { gt: 0 } }", "{ price: { lt: 8 } }" ] - name: customers # No filter is used for this field not # even defaults.filter filter: none - # You can create new fields that have a # real db table backing them name: me table: users filter: ["{ id: { eq: $user_id } }"] # - name: posts # filter: ["{ account_id: { _eq: $account_id } }"] ``` If deploying into environments like Kubernetes it's useful to be able to configure things like secrets and hosts though environment variables therfore we expose the below environment variables. This is escpecially useful for secrets since they are usually injected in via a secrets management framework ie. Kubernetes Secrets Keep in mind any value can be overwritten using environment variables for example `auth.jwt.public_key_type` converts to `SG_AUTH_JWT_PUBLIC_KEY_TYPE`. In short prefix `SG_`, upper case and all `.` should changed to `_`. #### Postgres environment variables ```bash SG_DATABASE_HOST SG_DATABASE_PORT SG_DATABASE_USER SG_DATABASE_PASSWORD ``` #### Auth environment variables ```bash SG_AUTH_RAILS_COOKIE_SECRET_KEY_BASE SG_AUTH_RAILS_REDIS_URL SG_AUTH_RAILS_REDIS_PASSWORD SG_AUTH_JWT_PUBLIC_KEY_FILE ``` ## Developing Super Graph If you want to build and run Super Graph from code then the below commands will build the web ui and launch Super Graph in developer mode with a watcher to rebuild on code changes. And the demo rails app is also launched to make it essier to test changes. ```bash # yarn is needed to build the web ui brew install yarn # yarn install dependencies and build the web ui (cd web && yarn install && yarn build) # generate some stuff the go code needs go generate ./... # do this the only the time to setup the database docker-compose run web rake db:create db:migrate # start super graph in development mode with a change watcher docker-compose up ``` ## MIT License MIT Licensed | Copyright © 2018-present Vikram Rangnekar