GraphQL Playground

A standalone GraphQL Playground package with a custom dark UI, schema explorer, smart editors, workspace import/export, and Docker support.

What This Package Is For

This package serves a browser-based GraphQL playground that helps developers:

• write and run GraphQL queries, mutations, and subscriptions
• inspect the schema in a side panel
• edit variables and headers with guided autocomplete
• view formatted JSON responses with syntax highlighting
• save, import, and export full workspaces with multiple tabs

It is designed to be embedded into an Express application or run as a standalone local server.

Features

• standalone Express server for quick local usage
• custom schema viewer with search and hover details
• query editor with GraphQL autocomplete and inline tooltips
• variables editor with schema-aware suggestions
• headers editor with common header suggestions
• response viewer with JSON syntax highlighting
• multi-tab workspace with import/export support
• Docker image support for a compiled runtime

Installation

npm install @bestcodetools/graphql-playground

Standalone Usage

For development:

npm run standalone

The playground will be available at:

http://localhost:3000/playground

You can change the port with:

PLAYGROUND_PORT=4000 npm run standalone

Compiled Runtime

To run the compiled standalone server without ts-node-dev:

npm run build
npm start

Docker Usage

Build the image:

docker build -t graphql-playground .

Run the container:

docker run -p 3000:3000 graphql-playground

Then open:

http://localhost:3000/playground

Available Scripts

• npm run standalone: starts the standalone server with ts-node-dev
• npm run build: transpiles TypeScript into dist
• npm start: runs the transpiled standalone server
• npm test: runs the Jest test suite
• npm run transpile:sass:watch: watches and transpiles Sass files

Testing

This package includes a basic integration test for the standalone server.

Run:

npm test

The test verifies that the standalone server starts on an automatically assigned port and responds with 200 on the configured playground path.

Notes

• The standalone runtime disables live reload in production mode.
• Workspace export sanitizes sensitive header values such as authorization, token, and key headers by replacing them with placeholders.

License

ISC