GraphQL CLI is back!

This article was published on Thursday, October 31, 2019 by Uri Goldshtein @ The Guild Blog

TL;DR;

• GraphQL CLI is a popular command-line tool providing various tools for creating and maintaining GraphQL based applications
• Prisma recently transferred the project to The Guild — and we completely rewrote it and closed over 100 issues
• We've already fixed and added many commands, but we are looking to learn and integrate with tools and companies across the ecosystem!
• You can now generate a full stack working app, from a GraphQL schema model, in 2 minutes using the init+generate commands!
• This is an alpha phase — we want your feedback, as a user and as a tool creator — Please create an issue and join our Discord channel

Overview

The GraphQL CLI provides:

• Helpful commands to improve your daily workflows, from starting a project to maintaining it for the long run
• Rich ecosystem and compatibility with libraries, editors and IDEs based on a unified graphql-config
• A powerful plugin system to extend GraphQL CLI with custom commands — supported by the community and The Guild

The main target of the GraphQL CLI is to provide a default entry point for the community to use
proven techniques for building and deploying GraphQL enabled applications while being vendor
agnostic.

Advanced developers and tool creators can extend
graphql-cli to provide additional capabilities while still
benefiting from a robust set of default commands for daily use — We want to use the CLI to encourage
open collaborations between different tool creators.

History

Over the years the GraphQL ecosystem flourished and evolved towards more production-ready use cases
with a large number of active community packages available.

GraphQL evolved thanks to the large community and the many supporting libraries it has created.

The GraphQL CLI has become a place for the community to share ideas and best practices across
different solutions and libraries thanks
to the push from Prisma.

The Guild took over GraphQL CLI
to continue on that promise:

• Making it as easy as possible create and deploy GraphQL based applications
• Making it easier to maintain production-grade, scalable GraphQL applications

All of that while:

• Keeping the CLI updated with the latest solutions and practices
• Making it extensible and configurable without any solution bias — any approach and architecture could easily integrate and benefit from the CLI
• Keeping the industry leading, long term open source library maintenance standard that The Guild is known for

Try It Out Today

We've already refactored most of the code, created a new structure, closed and fixed all the known
issues and released a new alpha version.

Install new version (follow the latest alpha in the
releases page):

npm install graphql-cli@canary

Create a new project with GraphQL CLI by running:

graphql init

GraphQL CLI will guide you and after only few seconds, your project will be ready to use!

End-To-End Type Safety

Code generation + end-to-end type safety is a hot topic nowadays. Thanks to tools like
GraphQL Code Generator we're able to produce flexible code
for both backend and frontend, just from GraphQL Schema and Operations with Fragments.

In GraphQL CLI, you get it out of the box by running:

graphql codegen

Discover what can be generator on GraphQL Codegen website.

Production Ready GraphQL Backend

Thanks to integration with GraphBack, you're able to produce an entire
Data Base, GraphQL schema with operations and strongly typed resolvers.

graphql generate

Take a look at GraphBack website to learn more.

Bulletproof Your GraphQL API

GraphQL CLI comes with most of the features of
GraphQL Inspector.

With just few simple commands you're able to:

• detect breaking or dangerous changes
• validate Operations and Fragments at build time
• analyze the usage of GraphQL Schema (unused types and fields)
• find duplicates and similar GraphQL Types
• serve faked GraphQL schema

graphql diff
graphql similar
graphql validate
graphql coverage
graphql serve

Visit GraphQL Inspector docs.

This Is Just the Start!

The GraphQL CLI has been rewritten in order to make it extremely customizable and extensible.

Our goal is to make sure that any tool can work and benefit from this setup.

The CLI offers freedom for anyone to create any command that will extend their workflows by creating
separate library. Alternatively you can open a conversation about new command that can be included
into our supported set of commands.

If you prefer to use all the Apollo toolings and products, AppSync's solutions, Prisma, OneGraph,
Hasura, Postgraphile or any other tool — we want to make the GraphQL CLI the best supporting tool
for your stack.

We won't impose any choices on the users. We want the community to lead and have template
generators for any technology.

This project is completely open and free from any bias, and we are open to any feedback and
collaboration with anyone from the community. Please reach out!

Example Use Cases of GraphQL CLI

The CLI gives you the ability to build a base template with your favorite stack and tools.

Templates can be based on graphql.js, Apollo, Nexus, TypeGraphQL or anything other framework.
Creating a custom template may help to enforce a specific structure that fits your product and
company.

The CLI comes with two default templates that provide a seamless starting point for both backend and
frontend, both could be pushed to production in a short time period.

Additionally, for existing applications, the CLI will support migrating existing databases or REST
API to GraphQL.

Production-Ready GraphQL App in Seconds

Or "Making GraphQL easy — From nothing to a full production-ready app in 2 minutes — with any
stack!""

There are many great GraphQL boilerplate repositories on available Github.

But when using those, it is often hard to adjust those to real business cases.

As an alternative to sample apps, developers can rely on frameworks that provide a high level of
abstraction.

But technologies that offer rapid application development might often come at the cost of the
maintenance and flexibility that can seriously limit the extensibility of your application server.

graphql init

We believe that making it easy to start with GraphQL is extremely important, but without sacrificing
other factors like extensibility, scalability and wider control.

Simple shouldn't equal bad architecture

GraphQL CLI addresses this very important problem in the core by utilizing two main concepts: code
generation and rich ecosystem of base templates.

The graphql init command is trying to address three simple questions:

• Can we build an application template that can offer production-ready capabilities and yet is simple enough to work without extensive learning?
• Can we provide our data model as input to the GraphQL engine and benefit from autogenerated data access methods?
• Can we use the same techniques for an existing application and generate partial models?

You can think of it as a smarter create-react-app, that works on a full-stack and understands
your data model.

We are calling leading boilerplate creators and frameworks to collaborate with us. We can help you
expose your boilerplates also as templates for the init command.

We would also love feedback from internal infrastructure teams from companies who wish to create
their own best practices and guidelines.

For more information please refer to
https://github.com/aerogear/graphback

One Config to Rule Them All — GraphQL Config

At the heart of a project created using GraphQL CLI is the GraphQL Config file. It lets the CLI
know where all the GraphQL parts are.

Config is essential for CLI templates and for the command creators that can utilize its
extensibility to save additional metadata. Thanks to graphql-config,
the CLI can provide seamless support for every extension and streamline development experience on
top of the GraphQL CLI generated projects and corresponding templates.

For more information about GraphQL Config, you can
click here to learn more.

Migration from 3.x.x to 4.x.x

We have provided a complete migration document for existing users who wish to update to the latest
version of the CLI. Please keep in mind that CLI is still in the alpha phase and we are looking for
the feedback before officially releasing a final version of the CLI.

Please follow
https://github.com/Urigo/graphql-cli/blob/master/MIGRATION.md
migration guide.

Help Us to Shape the GraphQL Ecosystem

Start using the GraphQL CLI today!

Even though we are in an alpha phase, the CLI is fully usable and ready for the community to adopt
it.

Our team is open to any suggestions and ideas for new commands.

We will support and answer all your questions on GitHub
and on our Discord channel.