plugins.md

title	Plugins
description	Extend Apollo Server with custom functionality

Plugins are available in Apollo Server 2.2.x and later.

Plugins enable you to extend Apollo Server's core functionality by performing custom operations in response to certain events. Currently, these events correspond to individual phases of the GraphQL request lifecycle, and to the startup of Apollo Server itself.

For example, a basic logging plugin might log the GraphQL query string associated with each request that's sent to Apollo Server.

Creating a plugin

Plugins are JavaScript objects that implement one or more functions that respond to events. Here's a basic plugin that responds to the serverWillStart event:

const myPlugin = {
  serverWillStart() {
    console.log('Server starting up!');
  },
};

If you're using TypeScript to create a plugin, the apollo-server-plugin-base module exports the ApolloServerPlugin interface for plugins to implement.

You can define a plugin in the same file where you initialize Apollo Server, or you can export it as a separate module:

module.exports = {
  serverWillStart() {
    console.log('Server starting up!');
  },
};

To create a plugin that accepts options, create a function that accepts an options object and returns a properly structured plugin object, like so:

module.exports = (options) => {
  return {
    serverWillStart() {
      console.log(options.logMessage);
    },
  };
};

Responding to events

A plugin specifies exactly which lifecycle events it responds to by implementing functions that correspond to those events. The plugin in the examples above responds to the serverWillStart event, which fires when Apollo Server is preparing to start up.

A plugin can respond to any combination of supported events.

Responding to request lifecycle events

Plugins can respond to the following events associated with the GraphQL request lifecycle:

• parsingDidStart
• validationDidStart
• didResolveOperation
• executionDidStart
• didEncounterErrors
• willSendResponse

However, the way you define these functions is slightly different from the serverWillStart example above. First, your plugin must define the requestDidStart function:

const myPlugin = {
  requestDidStart() {
    console.log('Request started!');
  },
};

The requestDidStart event fires whenever Apollo Server receives a GraphQL request, before any of the lifecycle events listed above. You can respond to this event just like you respond to serverWillStart, but you also use this function to define responses for a request's lifecycle events, like so:

const myPlugin = {
  requestDidStart(requestContext) {
    console.log('Request started!');

    return {

      parsingDidStart(requestContext) {
        console.log('Parsing started!');
      }

      validationDidStart(requestContext) {
        console.log('Validation started!');
      }

    }
  },
};

As shown, the requestDidStart function can optionally return an object that defines functions that respond to request lifecycle events. This structure organizes and encapsulates all of your plugin's request lifecycle logic, making it easier to reason about.

Inspecting request and response details

As the example above shows, requestDidStart and request lifecycle functions accept a requestContext parameter. This parameter is of type GraphQLRequestContext, which includes a request (of type GraphQLRequest), along with a response field (of type GraphQLResponse) if it's available.

These types and their related subtypes are all defined in apollo-server-types/src/index.ts.

Installing a plugin

Add your plugin to Apollo Server by providing a plugins configuration option to the ApolloServer constructor, like so:

const { ApolloServer } = require('apollo-server');
const ApolloServerOperationRegistry =
  require('apollo-server-plugin-operation-registry');

/* This example doesn't provide `typeDefs` or `resolvers`,
   both of which are required to start the server. */
const { typeDefs, resolvers } = require('./separatelyDefined');

const server = new ApolloServer({
  typeDefs,
  resolvers,

  // You can import plugins or define them in-line, as shown:
  plugins: [

    /* This plugin is from a package that's imported above. */
    ApolloServerOperationRegistry({ /* options */ }),

    /* This plugin is imported in-place. */
    require('./localPluginModule'),

    /* This plugin is defined in-line. */
    {
      serverWillStart() {
        console.log('Server starting up!');
      },
    }
  ],
})

Plugin event reference

Apollo Server supports two types of plugin events: server lifecycle events and request lifecycle events.

Server lifecycle events are high-level events related to the lifecycle of Apollo Server itself. Currently, two server lifecycle events are supported: serverWillStart and requestDidStart.

Request lifecycle events are associated with a specific request. You define responses to these events within the response to a requestDidStart event, as described in Responding to request lifecycle events.

Server lifecycle events

serverWillStart

The serverWillStart event fires when Apollo Server is preparing to start serving GraphQL requests. If you respond to this event with an async function (or if the function returns a Promise), the server doesn't start until the asynchronous operation completes. If the Promise is rejected, startup fails (unless you're using Express middleware). This helps you make sure all of your server's dependencies are available before attempting to begin serving requests.

Example

const server = new ApolloServer({
  /* ... other necessary configuration ... */

  plugins: [
    {
      serverWillStart() {
        console.log('Server starting!');
      }
    }
  ]
})

requestDidStart

The requestDidStart event fires whenever Apollo Server begins fulfilling a GraphQL request.

This function can optionally return an object that includes functions for responding to request lifecycle events that might follow requestDidStart.

const server = new ApolloServer({
  /* ... other necessary configuration ... */

  plugins: [
    {
      requestDidStart(requestContext) {

        /* Within this returned object, define functions that respond
           to request-specific lifecycle events. */
        return {

          /* The `parsingDidStart` request lifecycle event fires
             when parsing begins. The event is scoped within an
             associated `requestDidStart` server lifecycle event. */
          parsingDidStart(requestContext) {
            console.log('Parsing started!')
          },
        }
      }
    }
  ],
})

If your plugin doesn't need to respond to any request lifecycle events, requestDidStart should not return a value.

Request lifecycle events

If you're using TypeScript to create your plugin, implement the GraphQLRequestListener interface from the apollo-server-plugin-base module to define functions for request lifecycle events.

parsingDidStart

The parsingDidStart event fires whenever Apollo Server will parse a GraphQL request to create its associated document AST.

If Apollo Server receives a request with a query string that matches a previous request, the associated document might already be available in Apollo Server's cache. In this case, parsingDidStart is not called for the request, because parsing does not occur.

parsingDidStart?(
  requestContext: GraphQLRequestContext<TContext>,
): (err?: Error) => void | void;

validationDidStart

The validationDidStart event fires whenever Apollo Server will validate a request's document AST against your GraphQL schema.

Like parsingDidStart, this event does not fire if a request's document is already available in Apollo Server's cache (only successfully validated documents are cached by Apollo Server).

The document AST is guaranteed to be available at this stage, because parsing must succeed for validation to occur.

validationDidStart?(
  requestContext: WithRequired<GraphQLRequestContext<TContext>, 'document'>,
): (err?: ReadonlyArray<Error>) => void | void;

didResolveOperation

The didResolveOperation event fires after the graphql library successfully determines the operation to execute from a request's document AST. At this stage, both the operationName string and operation AST are available.

If the operation is anonymous (i.e., the operation is query { ... } instead of query NamedQuery { ... }), then operationName is null.

didResolveOperation?(
  requestContext: WithRequired<
    GraphQLRequestContext<TContext>,
    'document' | 'operationName' | 'operation'
  >,
): ValueOrPromise<void>;

executionDidStart

The executionDidStart event fires whenever Apollo Server begins executing the GraphQL operation specified by a request's document AST.

executionDidStart?(
  requestContext: WithRequired<
    GraphQLRequestContext<TContext>,
    'document' | 'operationName' | 'operation'
  >,
): (err?: Error) => void | void;

didEncounterErrors

The didEncounterErrors event fires whenever Apollo Server encounters an error while executing a GraphQL operation.

didEncounterErrors?(
  requestContext: WithRequired<
    GraphQLRequestContext<TContext>,
    'metrics' | 'source' | 'errors'
  >,
): ValueOrPromise<void>;

willSendResponse

The willSendResponse event fires whenever Apollo Server is about to send a response for a GraphQL operation. This event fires (and Apollo Server sends a response) even if the GraphQL operation encounters one or more errors.

willSendResponse?(
  requestContext: WithRequired<GraphQLRequestContext<TContext>, 'response'>,
): ValueOrPromise<void>;