Query with GraphQL

To use this HowTo, first clone the Star Wars demo into your team on TerminusCMS. You will then have full access to the data needed for this tutorial.

Once you have cloned the database, go to the GraphQL icon (triangle in hexagon) on the left hand side and select the filing cabinet icon.

Now you have two panels, one on the left for query, and one on the right for results.

Entering a query

First type query{ into the query panel. It should look like this:

query{
   █
}

If at the cursor point you type: Ctrl-c you'll get a list of options you can choose from. These options are legal GraphQL syntax according to your provided schema. Let's search for people from the Star Wars universe.

query{
   People{
      label
   }
}

The label property in this schema, supplies the name of the person we are interested in. Of course this query might give us a bit too much, so let us also limit it.

query{
   People(limit: 5){
      label
   }
}

This should result in:

{
  "data": {
    "People": [
      {
        "label": "Luke Skywalker"
      },
      {
        "label": "Obi-Wan Kenobi"
      },
      {
        "label": "Anakin Skywalker"
      },
      {
        "label": "Wilhuff Tarkin"
      },
      {
        "label": "Chewbacca"
      }
    ]
  }
}

To get more fields in our query, we can just add words, using Ctrl-c if we are stuck for names of fields.

query{
   People(limit: 5){
      label
   }
}

When following links to other objects, we have to embed a query inside our query. So, for instance, if we want to know the homeworld that each of these people come from we can write:

query{
   People(limit: 2){
      label
      homeworld{
        label
      }
   }
}

This will get us:

{
  "data": {
    "People": [
      {
        "label": "Luke Skywalker",
        "homeworld": {
          "label": "Tatooine"
        }
      },
      {
        "label": "Obi-Wan Kenobi",
        "homeworld": {
          "label": "Stewjon"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Paging

If we want to page the results, we can also add an offset to our query, and we'll get the next results.

query{
   People(limit: 2, offset:2){
      label
      homeworld{
        label
      }
   }
}

And now we get two more:

{
  "data": {
    "People": [
      {
        "label": "Anakin Skywalker",
        "homeworld": {
          "label": "Tatooine"
        }
      },
      {
        "label": "Wilhuff Tarkin",
        "homeworld": {
          "label": "Eriadu"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}