Fullstack Example with Next.js (GraphQL API)

This example shows how to implement a fullstack app in TypeScript with Next.js using React, Apollo Client (frontend), Nexus Schema and Prisma Client (backend). It uses a SQLite database file with some initial dummy data which you can find at ./prisma/dev.db.

Getting started

1. Download example and install dependencies

Download this example:

curl https://codeload.github.com/prisma/prisma-examples/tar.gz/latest | tar -xz --strip=2 prisma-examples-latest/typescript/graphql-nextjs

Install npm dependencies:

cd graphql-nextjs
npm install

git clone git@github.com:prisma/prisma-examples.git --depth=1

cd prisma-examples/typescript/graphql-nextjs
npm install

2. Create and seed the database

Run the following command to create your SQLite database file. This also creates the User and Post tables that are defined in prisma/schema.prisma:

npx prisma migrate dev --name init

Now, seed the database with the sample data in prisma/seed.ts by running the following command:

npx prisma db seed

2. Start the app

npm run dev

The app is now running, navigate to http://localhost:3000/ in your browser to explore its UI.

Using the GraphQL API

You can also access the GraphQL API of the API server directly. It is running on the same host machine and port and can be accessed via the /api route (in this case that is localhost:3000/api).

Below are a number of operations that you can send to the API.

Retrieve all published posts and their authors

query {
  feed {
    id
    title
    content
    published
    author {
      id
      name
      email
    }
  }
}

mutation {
  signupUser(name: "Sarah", email: "sarah@prisma.io") {
    id
  }
}

mutation {
  createDraft(
    title: "Join the Prisma Slack"
    content: "https://slack.prisma.io"
    authorEmail: "alice@prisma.io"
  ) {
    id
    published
  }
}

mutation {
  publish(postId: "__POST_ID__") {
    id
    published
  }
}

{
  filterPosts(searchString: "graphql") {
    id
    title
    content
    published
    author {
      id
      name
      email
    }
  }
}

{
  post(postId: "__POST_ID__") {
    id
    title
    content
    published
    author {
      id
      name
      email
    }
  }
}

mutation {
  deletePost(postId: "__POST_ID__") {
    id
  }
}

Evolving the app

Evolving the application typically requires three steps:

1. Migrate your database using Prisma Migrate
2. Update your server-side application code
3. Build new UI features in React

For the following example scenario, assume you want to add a "profile" feature to the app where users can create a profile and write a short bio about themselves.

1. Migrate your database using Prisma Migrate

The first step is to add a new table, e.g. called Profile, to the database. You can do this by adding a new model to your Prisma schema file file and then running a migration afterwards:

// ./prisma/schema.prisma

model User {
  id      Int      @default(autoincrement()) @id
  name    String?
  email   String   @unique
  posts   Post[]
+ profile Profile?
}

model Post {
  id        Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  title     String
  content   String?
  published Boolean  @default(false)
  author    User?    @relation(fields: [authorId], references: [id])
  authorId  Int?
}

+model Profile {
+  id     Int     @default(autoincrement()) @id
+  bio    String?
+  user   User    @relation(fields: [userId], references: [id])
+  userId Int     @unique
+}

Once you've updated your data model, you can execute the changes against your database with the following command:

npx prisma migrate dev --name add-profile

This adds another migration to the prisma/migrations directory and creates the new Profile table in the database.

2. Update your application code

You can now use your PrismaClient instance to perform operations against the new Profile table. Those operations can be used to implement queries and mutations in the GraphQL API.

2.1. Add the Profile type to your GraphQL schema

First, add a new GraphQL type via Nexus' objectType function:

// ./pages/api/index.ts

+const Profile = objectType({
+  name: 'Profile',
+  definition(t) {
+    t.nonNull.int('id')
+    t.string('bio')
+    t.field('user', {
+      type: 'User',
+      resolve: (parent) => {
+        return prisma.profile
+          .findUnique({
+            where: { id: parent.id || undefined },
+          })
+          .user()
+      },
+    })
+  },
+})

const User = objectType({
  name: 'User',
  definition(t) {
    t.nonNull.int('id')
    t.string('name')
    t.nonNull.string('email')
    t.nonNull.list.nonNull.field('posts', {
      type: 'Post',
      resolve: (parent) => {
        return prisma.user
          .findUnique({
            where: { id: parent.id || undefined },
          })
          .posts()
      },
    })
+   t.field('profile', {
+     type: 'Profile',
+     resolve: (parent) => {
+       return prisma.user.findUnique({
+         where: { id: parent.id }
+       }).profile()
+     }
+   })
  },
})

Don't forget to include the new type in the types array that's passed to makeSchema:

export const schema = makeSchema({
  types: [
    Query,
    Mutation,
    Post,
    User,
+   Profile,
    GQLDate
  ],
  // ... as before
}

Note that in order to resolve any type errors, your development server needs to be running so that the Nexus types can be generated. If it's not running, you can start it with npm run dev.

2.2. Add a createProfile GraphQL mutation

// ./pages/api/index.ts

const Mutation = objectType({
  name: 'Mutation',
  definition(t) {

    // other mutations

+   t.field('addProfileForUser', {
+     type: 'Profile',
+     args: {
+       email: stringArg(),
+       bio: stringArg()
+     }, 
+     resolve: async (_, args) => {
+       return prisma.profile.create({
+         data: {
+           bio: args.bio,
+           user: {
+             connect: {
+               email: args.email || undefined,
+             }
+           }
+         }
+       })
+     }
+   })

  }
})

Finally, you can test the new mutation like this:

mutation {
  addProfileForUser(
    email: "mahmoud@prisma.io"
    bio: "I like turtles"
  ) {
    id
    bio
    user {
      id
      name
    }
  }
}

const profile = await prisma.profile.create({
  data: {
    bio: 'Hello World',
    user: {
      connect: { email: 'alice@prisma.io' },
    },
  },
})

const user = await prisma.user.create({
  data: {
    email: 'john@prisma.io',
    name: 'John',
    profile: {
      create: {
        bio: 'Hello World',
      },
    },
  },
})

const userWithUpdatedProfile = await prisma.user.update({
  where: { email: 'alice@prisma.io' },
  data: {
    profile: {
      update: {
        bio: 'Hello Friends',
      },
    },
  },
})

3. Build new UI features in React

Once you have added a new query or mutation to the API, you can start building a new UI component in React. It could e.g. be called profile.tsx and would be located in the pages directory.

In the application code, you can access the new operations via Apollo Client and populate the UI with the data you receive from the API calls.

Next steps

• Check out the Prisma docs
• Share your feedback in the prisma2 channel on the Prisma Slack
• Create issues and ask questions on GitHub
• Watch our biweekly "What's new in Prisma" livestreams on Youtube

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