Overview

3 min read Original article ↗

Pothos

Pothos is a plugin based GraphQL schema builder for typescript.

It makes building graphql schemas in typescript easy, fast and enjoyable. The core of Pothos adds 0 overhead at runtime, and has graphql as its only dependency.

Pothos is the most type-safe way to build GraphQL schemas in typescript, and by leveraging type inference and typescript's powerful type system Pothos requires very few manual type definitions and no code generation.

Pothos has a unique and powerful plugin system that makes every plugin feel like its features are built into the core library. Plugins can extend almost any part of the API by adding new options or methods that can take full advantage of the Pothos type system.

Hello, World

import { createYoga } from 'graphql-yoga';
import { createServer } from 'node:http';
import SchemaBuilder from '@pothos/core';

const builder = new SchemaBuilder({});

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    hello: t.string({
      args: {
        name: t.arg.string(),
      },
      resolve: (parent, { name }) => `hello, ${name || 'World'}`,
    }),
  }),
});

const yoga = createYoga({
  schema: builder.toSchema(),
});

const server = createServer(yoga);

server.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Visit http://localhost:3000/graphql');
});

What sets Pothos apart

  • Pothos was built from the start to leverage typescript for best-in-class type-safety.
  • Pothos has a clear separation between the shape of your external GraphQL API, and the internal representation of your data.
  • Pothos comes with a large plugin ecosystem that provides a wide variety of features while maintaining great interoperability between plugins.
  • Pothos does not depend on code-generation or experimental decorators for type-safety.
  • Pothos has been designed to work at every scale from small prototypes to huge Enterprise applications, and is in use at some of the largest tech companies including Airbnb and Netflix.

Plugins that make Pothos even better

Add GraphQL

Add existing GraphQL types to your schema

Auth

Add global, type level, or field level authorization checks to your schema

Complexity

A plugin for defining and limiting complexity of queries

Dataloader

Quickly define data-loaders for your types and fields to avoid n+1 queries.

Directives

Integrate with existing schema graphql directives in a type-safe way.

Drizzle

A plugin to support efficient queries through drizzles relational query builder API

Errors

A plugin for easily including error types in your GraphQL schema and hooking up error types to resolvers.

Grafast

A plugin for using grafast plans instead of resolvers in your schema

Mocks

Add mock resolvers for easier testing

Prisma

A plugin for more efficient integration with prisma that can help solve n+1 issues and more efficiently resolve queries

Relay

Easy to use builder methods for defining relay style nodes and connections, and helpful utilities for cursor based pagination.

Simple Objects

Define simple object types without resolvers or manual type definitions.

Smart Subscriptions

Make any part of your graph subscribable to get live updates as your data changes.

Sub-Graph

Build multiple subsets of your graph to easily share code between internal and external APIs.

Tracing

Add tracing for resolver execution, with support for opentelemetry, newrelic, century, logging, and custom tracers

Validation

Validation using StandardSchemaV1 compatible libraries like Zod, Valibot, and ArkType

With-Input

Define fields with inline input objects