Morpheus GraphQL

Build GraphQL APIs with your favourite functional language!

Morpheus GraphQL helps you to build GraphQL APIs in Haskell with native haskell types. Morpheus will convert your haskell types to a GraphQL schema and all your resolvers are just native Haskell functions.

Morpheus is still in an early stage of development, so any feedback is more than welcome, and we appreciate any contribution! Just open an issue here on GitHub, or join our Slack channel to get in touch.

Getting Started

Setup

To get started with Morpheus, you first need to add it to your project's dependencies, as follows (assuming you're using hpack):

package.yml

dependencies:
  - morpheus-graphql

Additionally, you should tell stack which version to pick:

stack.yml

resolver: lts-12.0 # or greater
extra-deps:
  - megaparsec-7.0.5
  - morpheus-graphql-0.1.1

As Morpheus is quite new, make sure stack can find morpheus-graphql by running stack update

Building your first API

To define a GraphQL API with Morpheus we start by defining the API Schema as a native Haskell data type, which derives the Generic typeclass. Lazily resolvable fields on this Query type are defined via a -> ResM b, representing resolving a set of arguments a to a concrete value b.

data Query = Query
  { deity :: DeityArgs -> ResM Deity
  } deriving (Generic)

data Deity = Deity
  { fullName :: Text         -- Non-Nullable Field
  , power    :: Maybe Text   -- Nullable Field
  } deriving (Generic, GQLType)

type instance KIND Deity = OBJECT

data DeityArgs = DeityArgs
  { name      :: Text        -- Required Argument
  , mythology :: Maybe Text  -- Optional Argument
  } deriving (Generic)

For each field in the Query type defined via a -> ResM b (like deity) we will define a resolver implementation that provides the values during runtime by referring to some data source, e.g. a database or another API. Fields that are defined without a -> ResM b you can just provide a value.

resolveDeity :: DeityArgs -> ResM Deity
resolveDeity args = gqlResolver $ askDB (name args) (mythology args)

askDB :: Text -> Maybe Text -> IO (Either String Deity)
askDB = ...

Note that the type a -> ResM b is just Synonym for a -> ExceptT String IO b

To make this Query type available as an API, we define a GQLRootResolver and feed it to the Morpheus interpreter. A GQLRootResolver consists of query, mutation and subscription definitions, while we omit the latter for this example:

rootResolver :: GQLRootResolver IO Query () ()
rootResolver =
  GQLRootResolver
    { queryResolver = return Query {deity = resolveDeity}
    , mutationResolver = return ()
    , subscriptionResolver = return ()
    }

gqlApi :: ByteString -> IO ByteString
gqlApi = interpreter rootResolver

As you can see, the API is defined as ByteString -> IO ByteString which we can either invoke directly or use inside an arbitrary web framework such as scotty or serverless-haskell. We'll go for scotty in this example:

main :: IO ()
main = scotty 3000 $ post "/api" $ raw =<< (liftIO . gqlApi =<< body)

If we now send a POST request to http://localhost:3000/api with a GraphQL Query as body for example in a tool like Insomnia:

query GetDeity {
  deity (name: "Morpheus") {
    fullName
    power
  }
}

our query will be resolved!

{
  "data": {
    "deity": {
      "fullName": "Morpheus",
      "power": "Shapeshifting"
    }
  }
}

Serverless Example

If you are interested in creating a Morpheus GraphQL API with Serverless, you should take a look at our example in this repository: Mythology API it is our example project build with Morpheus GraphQL and Serverless-Haskell, where you can query different mythology characters with GraphiQL.

Mythology API is deployed on : api.morpheusgraphql.com where you can test it with GraphiQL

Advanced topics

Enums

You can use Union Types as Enums, but they're not allowed to have any parameters.

data City
  = Athens
  | Sparta
  | Corinth
  | Delphi
  | Argos
  deriving (Generic, GQLType)

type instance KIND City = ENUM

Union types

To use union type, all you have to do is derive the GQLType class. Using GraphQL fragments, the arguments of each data constructor can be accessed from the GraphQL client.

data Either b a
  = Right a
  | Left b
  deriving (Generic, GQLType)

type instance KIND City = UNION

Scalar types

To use custom scalar types, you need to provide implementations for parseValue and serialize respectively.

data Odd = Int deriving (Generic, GQLType)

instance GQLScalar Odd where
  parseValue (Int x) = pure $ Odd (...  )
  parseValue (String x) = pure $ Odd (...  )
  serialize  (Odd value) = Int value

type instance KIND Odd = SCALAR

Applicative and Monad instance

The Resolver type has Applicative and Monad instances that can be used to compose resolvers.

Introspection

Morpheus converts your schema to a GraphQL introspection automatically. You can use tools like Insomnia to take a look at the introspection and validate your schema. If you need a description for your GQLType inside of the introspection you can define the GQLType instance manually and provide an implementation for the description function:

data Deity = Deity
{ ...
} deriving (Generic)

instance GQLType Deity where
  description = const "A supernatural being considered divine and sacred"

screenshots from Insomnia

Mutations

In addition to queries, Morpheus also supports mutations. The behave just like regular queries and are defined similarly: Just exchange deriving GQLQuery for GQLMutation and declare them separately at the GQLRootResolver definition

newtype Mutation = Mutation
  { createDeity :: Form -> EffectM Deity
  } deriving (Generic)

createDeityMutation :: Form ::-> Deity
createDeityMutation = ...

rootResolver :: GQLRootResolver IO Query Mutation ()
rootResolver =
  GQLRootResolver
    { queryResolver = return Query {...}
    , mutationResolver = return Mutation {
       createDeity = createDeityMutation
    }
    , subscriptionResolver = return ()
    }

gqlApi :: ByteString -> IO ByteString
gqlApi = interpreter rootResolver

Subscriptions

because subscriptions are at an early stage of development, we only use Text for communication. Mutation with same channel ID triggers subscription.

we use GraphiQL with old apollo subscriptions-transport-ws@0.5.4 for subscription handling, that why server will only recognize events with old apollo format.

newtype Mutation = Mutation
  { createDeity :: DeityArgs -> EffectM Deity
  } deriving (Generic)

newtype Subscription = Mutation
  { newDeity :: () -> EffectM Deity
  } deriving (Generic)

createDeityResolver :: DeityArgs -> EffectM Address
createDeityResolver args = gqlEffectResolver ["UPDATE_DEITY"] createDeityOnDB args

newDeityResolver :: a -> EffectM Address
newDeityResolver _ = gqlEffectResolver ["UPDATE_DEITY"] $ fetchNewDeityFromDB

rootResolver :: GQLRootResolver IO Query Mutation Subscription
rootResolver =
  GQLRootResolver
    { queryResolver = return Query {...}
    , mutationResolver = return Mutation {
       createDeity = createDeityResolver
    }
    , subscriptionResolver = return Subscription {
         newDeity = newDeityResolver
      }
    }

gqlApi :: ByteString -> IO ByteString
gqlApi = interpreter rootResolver

About

The name

Morpheus is the greek god of sleep and dreams whose name comes from the greek word μορφή meaning form or shape. He is said to be able to mimic different forms and GraphQL is good at doing exactly that: Transforming data in the shape of many different APIs.

Team

Morpheus is written and maintained by nalchevanidze and PygmalionPolymorph.

Roadmap

• Medium future:
  • Stabilize API
  • Specification-isomorphic introspection
  • Specification-isomorphic error handling
• Long term:
  • Support all possible GQL features
  • Performance optimization