hooks.md

Hooks

Hooks are registered with the fastify.graphql.addHook method and allow you to listen to specific events in the GraphQL request/response lifecycle. You have to register a hook before the event is triggered, otherwise the event is lost.

By using hooks you can interact directly with the GraphQL lifecycle of Mercurius. There are GraphQL Request and Subscription hooks:

• GraphQL Request Hooks
  • preParsing
  • preValidation
  • preExecution
  • onResolution
  • Manage Errors from a request hook
  • Add errors to the GraphQL response from a hook
• GraphQL Subscription Hooks
  • preSubscriptionParsing
  • preSubscriptionExecution
  • onSubscriptionResolution
  • onSubscriptionEnd
  • Manage Errors from a subscription hook

Notice: these hooks are only supported with async/await or returning a Promise.

GraphQL Request Hooks

It is pretty easy to understand where each hook is executed by looking at the lifecycle page.

There are five different hooks that you can use in a GraphQL Request (in order of execution):

When registering hooks, you must wait for Mercurius to be registered in Fastify.

await fastify.ready()

preParsing

If you are using the preParsing hook, you can access the GraphQL query string before it is parsed. It receives the schema and context objects as other hooks.

For instance, you can register some tracing events:

fastify.graphql.addHook('preParsing', async (schema, source, context) => {
  await registerTraceEvent()
})

preValidation

By the time the preValidation hook triggers, the query string has been parsed into a GraphQL Document AST. The hook will not be triggered for cached queries, as they are not validated.

fastify.graphql.addHook('preValidation', async (schema, document, context) => {
  await asyncMethod()
})

preExecution

In the preExecution hook, you can modify the following items by returning them in the hook definition:

• document
• schema
• variables
• errors

Note that if you modify the schema or the document object, the jit compilation will be disabled for the request.

fastify.graphql.addHook('preExecution', async (schema, document, context, variables) => {
  const {
    modifiedSchema,
    modifiedDocument,
    modifiedVariables,
    errors
  } = await asyncMethod(document)

  return {
    schema: modifiedSchema, // ⚠️ changing the schema may break the query execution. Use it carefully.
    document: modifiedDocument,
    variables: modifiedVariables,
    errors
  }
})

onResolution

The onResolution hooks run after the GraphQL query execution and you can access the result via the execution argument.

fastify.graphql.addHook('onResolution', async (execution, context) => {
  await asyncMethod()
})

Manage Errors from a request hook

If you get an error during the execution of your hook, you can just throw an error and Mercurius will automatically close the GraphQL request and send the appropriate errors to the user.`

fastify.graphql.addHook('preParsing', async (schema, source, context) => {
  throw new Error('Some error')
})

Add errors to the GraphQL response from a hook

The following hooks support adding errors to the GraphQL response. These are:

• preExecution

fastify.graphql.addHook('preExecution', async (schema, document, context) => {
  return {
    errors: [new Error('foo')]
  }
})

Note, the original query will still execute. Adding the above will result in the following response:

{
  "data": {
    "foo": "bar"
  },
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "foo"
    },
    {
      "message": "bar"
    }
  ]
}

GraphQL Subscription Hooks

It is pretty easy to understand where each hook is executed by looking at the lifecycle page.

There are five different hooks that you can use in GraphQL Subscriptions (in order of execution):

When registering hooks, you must make sure that subscriptions are enabled and you must wait for Mercurius to be registered in Fastify.

await fastify.ready()

preSubscriptionParsing

If you are using the preSubscriptionParsing hook, you can access the GraphQL subscription query string before it is parsed. It receives the schema and context objects as other hooks.

For instance, you can register some tracing events:

fastify.graphql.addHook('preSubscriptionParsing', async (schema, source, context) => {
  await registerTraceEvent()
})

preSubscriptionExecution

By the time the preSubscriptionExecution hook triggers, the subscription query string has been parsed into a GraphQL Document AST.

fastify.graphql.addHook('preSubscriptionExecution', async (schema, document, context) => {
  await asyncMethod()
})

onSubscriptionResolution

fastify.graphql.addHook('onSubscriptionResolution', async (execution, context) => {
  await asyncMethod()
})

onSubscriptionEnd

This hook will be triggered when a subscription ends.

fastify.graphql.addHook('onSubscriptionEnd', async (context, id) => {
  await asyncMethod()
})

Manage Errors from a subscription hook

If you get an error during the execution of your subscription hook, you can just throw an error and Mercurius will send the appropriate errors to the user along the websocket.`

Notice: there are exceptions to this with the onSubscriptionResolution and onSubscriptionEnd hooks, which will close the subscription connection if an error occurs.

fastify.graphql.addHook('preSubscriptionParsing', async (schema, source, context) => {
  throw new Error('Some error')
})

GraphQL Application lifecycle Hooks

There is one hook that you can use in a GraphQL application.

When registering hooks, you must wait for Mercurius to be registered in Fastify.

await fastify.ready()