GraphQL with TypeORM and TypeGraphQL

June 12th, 2020 By Alex Hu

GraphQL gains a lot of steam in the last few years. It is easy to understand why it has a good following as there are a lot to like:

• Easy to learn query language
• JSON result that match up with the query
• Strong data type and schema
• GraphiQL query browser

What sold me was actually GraphiQL query browser. There is nothing like a good interactive query browser as you can build and test the server side changes without touching a line of client code.

On the other hand, I am not too crazy about having to define the data types 3 times, namely

1. GraphQL schema
2. Database models
3. TypeScript data types

Wouldn't it be good to define the model only once? Well, the community already build this beast using TypeORM and TypeGraphQL and YouTube has an excellent Typescript GraphQL CRUD Tutorial for it. Basically,

npx create-graphql-api

will get you started with all the packages and you create the models in TypeScript using TypeORM and TypeGraphQL annotations. TypeORM also supports a wide array of databases, including MySQL, Postgres and MongoDB NoSQL database.

If I were starting a large scale project for a business, it would be a right fit for it. However, since this project is a learning tool for me, TypeORM and TypeGraphQL hide too much details and actually hampering the learning process. I also notice that there are a good number of annotations to map between the different data types. It would be difficult for me to judge if TypeORM and TypeGraphQL worths the effort until I have a chance to go back to basic with just barebone database access.