customise generated type names in graphql schema

[maxpain]

Hi. It will be cool to let a developer select which style of schema's root resolver and type names to use. Or let him override it in a console (separately for an object and arrays).
In my case, I already have a frontend on ApolloStack (about 60000 lines of code) + backend on JoinMonster, and it's too hard to replace joinMonster to Hasura, because I need to transform schema, like this:

export default async function getSchema() {
	const link = makeHttpAndWsLink(HASURA_GRAPHQL_ENGINE_URL, HASURA_ACCESS_KEY && { 'x-hasura-access-key': HASURA_ACCESS_KEY })

	const schema = makeRemoteExecutableSchema({
		schema: await introspectSchema(link),
		link
	})

	return transformSchema(schema, [
		new RenameTypes(type => pluralize.singular(capitalize(camelCase(type)))),
		new RenameRootFields((operation, name) => {
			let newName = name

			if (name.includes('_by_pk')) {
				newName = pluralize.singular(newName.replace('_by_pk', ''))
			}

			return camelCase(newName)
		})
	])
}

I want to:

• Type names must be in camelcase style
• Type names must begin with a capital letter
• Type names must be in the singular (even if the table name is in the plural) because it describes one object
• Root resolvers names must be in camelcase style
• Root resolvers names which returning arrays must be in the plural
• Root resolvers names which returning an object must be in the singular (_by_pk, for example)

Example:
Before:

user_parties: [user_parties!]!
user_parties_by_pk: user_parties

After:

userParties: [UserParty!]!
userParty: UserParty

[revskill10]

I don't think camelCase is actually useful.
In my case, i use user_parties as translation key for i18n.

[shahidhk]

@Maxpain177 What you are proposing is complete customisability for the schema generated by Hasura from your Postgres tables, right? Like camel case vs snake case, singular vs plural etc.

I have added an ideas label so that we can discuss further.

[maxpain]

@Maxpain177 What you are proposing is complete customisability for the schema generated by Hasura from your Postgres tables, right? Like camel case vs snake case, singular vs plural etc.

I have added an ideas label so that we can discuss further.

Yes exactly

[0x777]

The server can add a field_names option to the track_table API to customise fields at the top level.

For example, for an article table

{
    "select": "Articles",
    "select_by_pk": "Article",
    "select_aggregate": "ArticleAggregate",
    "insert" : "AddArticles",
    "update" : "UpdateArticles",
    "delete" : "DeleteArticles"
}

I'm not sure about how to allow customisation of the column names. For relationships, it is already under the user control. However for every array relationship, we also generate a _aggregate field which we should allow to be customised. That can be part of the create_array_relationship API.

The console can then do the hard part of automatically adding the correct field names to the track_table request based on the user's choice, snake case or camel case etc.

Thoughts @rikinsk @praveenweb @coco98 ?

[maxpain]

@0x777, @shahidhk, @rikinsk, @praveenweb, @coco98
I think we also should allow being customized fields in tables.

[0x777]

@Maxpain177 That might complicate things a bit but I see your point.

[akiran]

yes, I would like to customise the schema as well.

Since data coming from graphql flow into code, it is better to have semantic names for better maintainability. For example, if graphql return list of users, I would like to have data property name to be users instead user.

[maxpain]

yes, I would like to customise the schema as well.

Since data coming from graphql flow into code, it is better to have semantic names for better maintainability. For example, if graphql return list of users, I would like to have data property name to be users instead user.

While we wait for implementing this feauture by Hasura Team, we can use graphql aliases.

[JeetChaudhari]

I got excited when I checked the features of Hasura, however when I set up Hasura using Heroku I really did not like it just because of naming conventions used by Hasura.

I started creating table and column names, soon while entering column names I realized that my column name contains error, it was because I used "firstName" while it expected "first_name", but I thought let it be, its just name of columns in DB, we would not be typing these in angular frontend as I thought there would be something in Hasura to convert these to camel case in API.

Going forward I wrote a query in GraphiQl but disappointed to see it has all field names as "first_name" and not firstName, more to it the functions names "insert_user". I just don't understand why? Why this cannot be as simple as "createUser". Still not a big problem for developing apps with Hasura.

Next, I see this user: [], Now this is really problematic as it would create confusion for developers. I think this is important, we should be writing users to get multiple users and single user by writing user not user_by_pk.

One more thing instead of "returning" can't we use something like "nodes" or just "items"

[coco98]

@JeetChaudhari Thanks for your input. This issue will address your concerns. However, if this is possible for you, in the time being, naming your tables the way you would like your schema variables will address the concerns you mentioned.

Eg: Name your table users, and your columns 'firstName'. :)

I've created a sample console with a sample users table here:
https://api-days.herokuapp.com/console/api-explorer?query_file=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/coco98/7d2e8992af7d2ce0224619d8b8ff21ce/raw/f632c01838c9399b5782650d10c17a20f4831b33/camecase.graphql

[JeetChaudhari]

@coco98 I was thinking about same, Thank you for showing me how to do it. Currently, I would do my project as you explained but I hope in the near future Hasura team changes the names to "user_by_pk" => "user" or "accountByAccountId" => "account".