Apollo GraphQL - Import .graphql schema as typeDefs

Question

With graphql-yoga you can simply import your schema by doing the following: typeDefs: './src/schema.graphql'. Is there a similar way of doing so with apollo-server-express?

If there isn't, how does one import the typeDefs from an external .graphql file?

Answer 1

I found a way of doing this by using grahpql-import which does exactly what I needed. See sample code below:

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-express'
import { importSchema } from 'graphql-import'
import Query from './resolvers/Query'

const typeDefs = importSchema('./src/schema.graphql')
const server = new ApolloServer({
    typeDefs,
    resolvers: {
        Query
    }
})

const app = express()
server.applyMiddleware({ app })

app.listen({ port: 4000 })

**

UPDATE: graphql-import v0.7+

**

importSchema is now async and should be handled as a promise. Just wrap it in a async function and simply await it.

async function start() {
    const typeDefs = await importSchema(".src/schema.graphql")
}

Answer 2

You can use the function makeExecutableSchema to pass in the typeDefs. Something like this:

import { makeExecutableSchema } from 'graphql-tools';
import mySchema from './src/schema.graphql';

const app = express();

const schema = makeExecutableSchema({
  typeDefs: [mySchema],
  resolvers: {
    ...
  },
});

app.use(
  '/graphql',
  graphqlExpress({ schema })
);

Answer 3

As a more recent response, following the top of the tutorial here link one can move the schema to a new file called schema.graphql and then import "fs" and "path" and input in the file so now it looks like:

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

const server = new ApolloServer({
  typeDefs: fs.readFileSync(
    path.join(__dirname, 'schema.graphql'),
    'utf8'
  ),
  resolvers,
})