Node.js GraphQL Framework for building APIs with strong conventions through auto-generated code. With Warthog, set up your data models and resolvers, and it does the rest.

Summary

Warthog is a Node.js GraphQL API framework for quickly building consistent GraphQL APIs that have sorting, filtering and pagination out of the box. It is written in TypeScript and makes heavy use of decorators for concise, declarative code.

Philosophy

This library is intentionally opinionated and generates as much code as possible. When teams build products quickly, even if they have strong conventions and good linters, the GraphQL can quickly become inconsistent, making it difficult for clients to consume the APIs in a reusable way.

To do this, Warthog automatically generates the following:

• Database schema - generated by TypeORM
• Your entire GraphQL Schema including:
  • types to match your entities - generated by TypeGraphQL
  • GraphQL inputs for consistent creates, updates, filtering, and pagination inspired by Prisma's conventions
• A graphql-binding for type-safe programmatic access to your APIs.
• TypeScript classes for the generated GraphQL schema for type-safety while developing.

Further, it covers the following concerns by hooking into best-in-class open source libraries:

• Validation: Automatic validation before data is saved using any of the decorators available in the class-validator library.

Prerequisites

Warthog currently only supports PostgreSQL as a DB engine, so you must have Postgres installed before getting Warthog set up. (Note: Postgres 12 is not currently supported)

Expand for Postgres installation options

Homebrew (OSX)

If you're on OSX and have homebrew and homebrew-cask installed, you can simply run:

brew cask install postgres

Or you can install Homebrew's official version:

brew install postgresql
`brew --prefix`/opt/postgres/bin/createuser -s postgres

Postgres.app (OSX)

Otherwise, you can install Postgres.app manually.

Docker

See the warthog-starter project for how to use Docker to run Postgres.

Usage

Warthog comes with a CLI that makes it easy to get started.

Create new project with the CLI

# Add warthog so that we can use the CLI
yarn add warthog

# Bootstrap a new application using Warthog CLI
yarn warthog new

# Install dependencies from generated package.json
yarn

# Generate a resource (model, resolver and service)
yarn warthog generate user name! nickname age:int! verified:bool!

# Generate typescript classes and GraphQL schema
yarn warthog codegen

# Create your DB
yarn warthog db:create

# Generate the DB migration for your newly generated model
yarn warthog db:migrate:generate --name=create-user-table

# Run the DB migration
yarn warthog db:migrate

# Start the server
yarn start:dev

Here's what this looks like in action:

This will open up GraphQL Playground, where you can execute queries and mutations against your API.

First, add a user by entering the following in the window:

mutation {
  createUser(data: { name: "Test User", age: 25, verified: false }) {
    id
    name
    createdAt
  }
}

Then, query for this user:

query {
  users {
    id
    name
    createdAt
  }
}

See introducing-graphql-playground for more info about GraphQL Playground.

Expand for other options for how to play with Warthog

Cloning the starter project

The easiest way to start using Warthog for a fresh project is to clone the warthog-starter repo. To get the starter project up and running, do the following:

git clone git@github.com:goldcaddy77/warthog-starter.git
cd warthog-starter
yarn bootstrap
WARTHOG_AUTO_OPEN_PLAYGROUND=true yarn start:dev

Running the examples in the Warthog repo

You can also clone the Warthog repo and run the examples in the examples folder.

git clone git@github.com:goldcaddy77/warthog.git
cd warthog/examples/01-simple-model
yarn bootstrap
yarn db:seed:dev
yarn start

This has a simple example in place to get you started. There are also a bunch of examples in the folder for more advanced use cases.

Note that the examples in the examples folder use relative import paths to call into Warthog. In your projects, you won't need to set this config value as it's only set to deal with the fact that it's using the Warthog core files without consuming the package from NPM. In your projects, you can omit this as I do in warthog-starter.

Warthog Constructs Explained

Models

A model represents both a GraphQL type and a DB table. Warthog exposes a BaseModel class that provides the following columns for free: id, createdAt, createdById, updatedAt, updatedById, deletedAt, deletedById, version. If you use BaseModel in conjunction with BaseService (see below), all of these columns will be updated as you'd expect. The Warthog server will find all models that match the following glob - '/**/*.model.ts'. Ex: user.model.ts

Custom TypeORM and TypeGraphQL options may be passed into the Model decorator using the following signature.

@Model({ api: { description: 'Custom description' }, db: { name: 'customtablename' } })

Resolvers

A Warthog resolver exposes queries (reading data) and mutations (writing data). They interact with the DB through services (described below) and typically make use of a bunch of auto-generated TypeScript types in the generated folder for things like sorting and filtering. Warthog will find all resolvers that match the following glob - '/**/*.resolver.ts'. Ex: user.resolver.ts

Services

Services are the glue between resolvers and models. Warthog exposes a class called BaseService that exposes the following methods: find, findOne, create, update, delete. For the find operator, it also maps the auto-generated WhereInput attributes to the appropriate TypeORM Query Builders. Warthog's convention is to name services <model-name>.service.ts. Ex: user.service.ts

Generated Folder

When you start your server, there will be a new generated folder that Warthog creates automatically. The folder contains:

• classes.ts: Warthog auto-generates this file from the metadata it collects (from decorators like Model, Query, Resolver, StringField, etc...). Resolvers will import items from here instead of having to manually create them.
• schema.graphql: This is auto-generated from our resolvers, models and classes.ts above. Check out this example's schema.graphql to show the additional GraphQL schema Warthog autogenerates.
• ormconfig.ts: a TypeORM ormconfig file.
• binding.ts - a graphql-binding for type-safe programmatic access to your API (making real API calls)

Server API (appOptions)

Most of the config in Warthog is done via environment variables (see Config - Environment Variables below). However, more complex/dynamic objects should be passed via the server config.

attribute	description	default
container	TypeDI container. Warthog uses dependency injection under the hood.	empty container
authChecker	An instance of an AuthChecker to secure your resolvers.
context	Context getter of form (request: Request) => object	empty
logger	Logger	debug
middlewares	TypeGraphQL middlewares to add to your server	none
onBeforeGraphQLMiddleware	Callback executed just before the Graphql server is started. The Express app is passed.	none
onAfterGraphQLMiddleware	Callback executed just after the Graphql server is started. The Express app is passed.	none

Config - Environment Variables

Almost all config in Warthog is driven by environment variables. The following items are available:

variable	value	default
WARTHOG_APP_HOST	App server host	none
WARTHOG_APP_PORT	App server port	4000
WARTHOG_APP_PROTOCOL	App server protocol	http
WARTHOG_AUTO_GENERATE_FILES	Auto-generate files	false (true in development)
WARTHOG_AUTO_OPEN_PLAYGROUND	Open playground on server start	false (true in development)
WARTHOG_CLI_GENERATE_PATH	Where should CLI generate files	./src
WARTHOG_DB_CONNECTION	DB connection type	postgres
WARTHOG_DB_DATABASE	DB name	none
WARTHOG_DB_ENTITIES	Where should warthog look for models	src/**/*.model.ts
WARTHOG_DB_MIGRATIONS	What DB migrations should TypeORM run	db/migrations/**/*.ts
WARTHOG_DB_MIGRATIONS_DIR	Where should generated migrations be placed	db/migrations
WARTHOG_DB_PORT	DB port	5432
WARTHOG_DB_USERNAME	DB username	none
WARTHOG_DB_LOGGER	TypeORM logger	advanced-console
WARTHOG_DB_PASSWORD	DB password	none
WARTHOG_DB_SYNCHRONIZE	DB automatically migrated	false
WARTHOG_GENERATED_FOLDER	Where should generated code be placed	./generated
WARTHOG_INTROSPECTION	Allow server to be introspected	true
WARTHOG_MOCK_DATABASE	Should we use mock sqlite DB?	false
WARTHOG_RESOLVERS_PATH	Where should Warthog look for resolvers	src/**/*.resolver.ts

Field/Column Decorators

All of the auto-generation magic comes from the decorators added to the attributes on your models. Warthog decorators are convenient wrappers around TypeORM decorators (to create DB schema) and TypeGraphQL (to create GraphQL schema). You can find a list of decorators available in the src/decorators folder. Most of these are also used in the examples folder in this project.

Complex use cases/ejecting

Warthog makes building simple CRUD endpoints incredibly easy. However, since it is built on top of TypeORM and TypeGraphQL it is flexible enough to handle complex use cases as well.

DB-only

If you need to add a column to the DB that does not need to be exposed via the API, you should just use the TypeORM decorators

API-only

If you need to add a field that is only exposed via the API that is not DB-backed, you should just use the TypeGraphQL Field Decorator

Custom Query

See the feature-flag example for an example of where we'd want to build something beyond the standard CRUD actions. In this example we want to add a custom query that makes a complex DB call.

• First add the query to the resolver - link to code
• Then add the custom query input in the resolver - link to code
• Then add the custom service method that fetches the data link to code

Warthog will generate the correct GraphQL query and InputType automatically.

CLI

Warthog ships with the following commands that can be accessed by running yarn warthog <command>.

See the warthog-starter project's package.json for example usage.

Command	Args	Description
codegen	none	autogenerates code from decorated models and resolvers and places in generated folder
db:create	none	creates DB based on DB specified in config file
db:drop	none	drops DB based on DB specified in config file
generate	See below	generates a model, service and resolver
db:migrate	none	migrates DB (proxies through TypeORM CLI)
db:migrate:create	none	auto-generates DB migration based on new code additions (proxies through TypeORM CLI)

generate Command in depth

The generate command will create a new resolver, service and model for a given resource. Let's start with a complex example and we'll break it down:

yarn warthog generate user name! nickname numLogins:int! verified:bool! registeredAt:date balance:float! --folder my_generated_folder

• user - this is the name of the new resource (required)
• ...args - each of the remaining args until --folder is a field on the resource
• name! - the name field is of type string by default since no data type is specified. The ! states that it's required
• numLogins:int! - numLogins states that it is of type int - also required
• registeredAt:date - registeredAt is of type date (which correlates to an ISO8601 datetime). The absence of the ! means it is optional.
• ...the rest of the args are self-explanatory. Possible types are bool, date, int, float and string. If you need to use other types, just add them as strings and update the models manually.
• --folder - this allows you to explicitly set the folder where the generated files should go. This is not recommended and instead you should use the .rc file (see below)

warthogrc config file

Warthog uses cosmiconfig for config that shouldn't change between environments (so typically file paths). This means you can put any of the following config files in your project root:

• .warthogrc.json
• .warthogrc.yaml
• .warthogrc.js
• warthog.config.js file (exporting a JS object)

The following config options are currently available:

Config Key	Description	Equivalent Environment Variable
generatedFolder	Relative location to generated folder (relative path from the config file)	WARTHOG_GENERATED_FOLDER
cliGeneratePath	Where should CLI place generated files? (relative path from the config file)	WARTHOG_CLI_GENERATE_PATH
resolversPath	Where should Warthog look for resolvers? (comma-delimited list of regexes)	WARTHOG_RESOLVERS_PATH

Note that for cliGeneratePath, you can interpolate in the following strings to generate dynamic paths:

• className (pascal case)
• camelName (camel case)
• kebabName (kebab case)

Example:

{
  "cliGeneratePath": "./src/${kebabName}"
}

Running yarn warthog generate featureFlag would create 3 files in the ./src/feature-flag/ folder. See feature-flag example for a live example.

Usage in Production

It is recommended that you not run Warthog's TypeScript files via ts-node in Production as we do in development as ts-node has been known to cause issues in some smaller AWS instances. Instead, compile down to JS and run in node. For a full project example (using dotenvi for config management), see warthog-starter

Contributing

PRs accepted, fire away! Or add issues if you have use cases Warthog doesn't cover.

Before contributing, make sure you have Postgres installed and running with a user named postgres with an empty password. If you don't have this local Postgres user, you'll need to update the .env files in the examples folders to point to a user that can run DB migrations.

Once you have this user set up, you can build a specific example by navigating to that folder and running yarn bootstrap.

If you want to build all examples, you can run yarn bootstrap from the Warthog root folder.

It's helpful to add a new feature to the Warthog and make use of it in one of the examples folders until you've determined how it's going to work. Once you have it working, you can add tests.

Intentionally Opinionated

Warthog is intentionally opinionated to accelerate development and make use of technology-specific features:

• Postgres - currently the only database supported. This could be changed, but choosing Postgres allows adding a docker container and other goodies easily.
• Jest - other harnesses will work, but if you use Jest, we will not open the GraphQL playground when the server starts, for example.
• Soft deletes - no records are ever deleted, only "soft deleted". The base service used in resolvers filters out the deleted records by default.

Thanks

Special thanks to:

• TypeORM - DB generation
• TypeGraphQL - GraphQL generation
• Prisma - OpenCrud conventions
• richardbmx - Logo design

Warthog is essentially a really opinionated composition of TypeORM and TypeGraphQL that uses similar GraphQL conventions to the Prisma project.

License

MIT © Dan Caddigan