The official Node.js client library for EdgeDB

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This is the official EdgeDB client library for JavaScript and TypeScript.

If you're just getting started with EdgeDB, we recommend going through the EdgeDB Quickstart first. This walks you through the process of installing EdgeDB, creating a simple schema, and writing some simple queries.

Requirements

• Node.js 12+
• TypeScript only
  • TypeScript 4.4+
  • yarn add @types/node

Installation

npm install edgedb      # npm users
yarn add edgedb         # yarn users

Basic usage

The examples below demonstrate only the most fundamental use cases for this library. Go to the complete documentation site. >

Create a client

A client is an instance of the Client class, which maintains a pool of connections to your database and provides methods for executing queries.

For TypeScript (and Node.js+ESM)

import * as edgedb from "edgedb";

const client = edgedb.createClient();

For Node.js (CommonJS)

const edgedb = require("edgedb");

const client = edgedb.createClient();

Configuring the connection

The call to edgedb.createClient() doesn't require arguments, as the library can determine how to connect to your database using the following mechanisms.

1. For local development: initialize a project with the edgedb project init command. As long as the file is within a project directory, createClient will be able to auto-discover the connection information of the project's associated instance. For more information on projects, follow the Using projects guide.

2. In production: configure the connection using environment variables. (This can also be used during local development if you prefer.) The easiest way is to set the EDGEDB_DSN variable; a DSN (also known as a "connection string") is a string of the form edgedb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOSTNAME:PORT/DATABASE.

For advanced cases, see the DSN specification and Reference > Connection Parameters.

Run a query

The remainder of the documentation assumes you are using ES module (import) syntax.

import * as edgedb from "edgedb";

const client = edgedb.createClient();
await client.query("select 2 + 2"); // => [4]

Note that the result is an array. The .query() method always returns an array, regardless of the result cardinality of your query. If your query returns zero or one elements, use the .querySingle() instead.

// empty set, zero elements
await client.querySingle("select <str>{}"); // => null

// one element
await client.querySingle("select 2 + 2"); // => 4

// one element
await client.querySingle(
  `select Movie { title }
  filter .id = <uuid>'2eb3bc76-a014-45dc-af66-2e6e8cc23e7e';`
); // => { title: "Dune" }

Query builder

Instead of writing queries as strings, you can use this package to generate a query builder. The query builder lets you write queries in a code-first way and automatically infers the return type of your queries.

To generate the query builder, install the edgedb, initialize a project (if you haven't already), then run the following command:

$ npx edgeql-js

This will generate an EdgeQL query builder into the "./dbschema/edgeql-js directory, as defined relative to your project root.

For details on using the query builder, refer to the complete documentation. Below is a simple select query as an example.

import {createClient} from "edgedb";
import e from "./dbschema/edgeql-js";

const client = createClient();
const query = e.select(e.Movie, movie => ({
  id: true,
  title: true,
  actors: { name: true },
  num_actors: e.count(movie.actors)
  filter: e.op(movie.title, '=', 'Dune')
}));

const result = await query.run(client);
result.actors[0].name; // => Timothee Chalamet

You can also fetch the results as a JSON-serialized string with .runJSON. This serialization happens inside the database and is much faster than calling JSON.stringify yourself.

const result = await query.runJSON(client);
// => '{"actors": [{"name": "Timothee Chalamet", ...}]}'

Contribute

Contributing to this library requires a local installation of EdgeDB. Install EdgeDB from here or build it from source.

$ git clone git@github.com:edgedb/edgedb-js.git
$ cd edgedb-js
$ yarn              # install dependencies
$ yarn build        # compile TypeScript
$ yarn tests        # run tests

License

edgedb-js is developed and distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.