Tag: graphql api

Terrazura – A Build Out of an Azure based, Hasura GraphQL API on Postgres

I created this repo https://github.com/Adron/terrazura​ during a live stream on my Twitch Thrashing Code Channel 🤘 at 10am on the 30th of December, 2020. The VOD is now available on my YouTube Thrashing Code Channel https://youtube.com/thrashingcode​. A rough as hell year, but wanted to wrap it up with some solid content. In this stream I tackled a ton of specifics, in detail about getting Hasura deployed in Azure, Postgres backed, a database schema designed and created, using database schema migrations, and all sorts of tips n’ tricks along the way. 3 hours of solid how to get shit done material!

For live streams, check out and follow at https://www.twitch.tv/thrashingcode​ 👊🏻 or for VOD viewing check out https://youtube.com/thrashingcode

A point in coding during the video!

02:49​ – Shout out to the stream sponsor, Azure, and links to some collateral material.
14:50​ – In this first segment, I start but run into some troubleshooting needs around the provider versions for Terraform in regards to Azure. You can skip this part unless you want to see what issue I ran into.
18:24​ – Since I ran into issues with the current version of Terraform I had installed, at this time I show a quick upgrade to the latest version.
27:22​ – After upgrading and fighting through trial and error execution of Terraform until I finally get the right combination of provider and Terraform versions.
27:53​ – Adding the first Terraform resource, the Azure resource group.
29:47​ – Azure Portal oddness, just to take note off if/when you’re working through this. Workaround later in the stream.
32:00​ – Adding the Postgres server resource.
44:43​ – In this segment I switched over to Jetbrain’s Intellij to do the rest of the work. I also tweak the IDE to re-add the plugin for the material design themes and icons. If you use this IDE, it’s very much IMHO worth getting this to switch between themes.
59:32​ – After getting leveled-up with the IDE, I wrap up the #Postgres​ server resource and #terraform​ apply it the overall set of resources. At this point I also move forward with the infrastructure as code, with emphasis on additive changes to the immutable infrastructure by emphasizing use of terraform apply and minimizing any terraform destroy use.
1:02:07​ – At this time, I try figuring out the portal issue by az logout and logging back in az login to Azure Still no resources shown but…
1:08:47​ – eventually I realize I have to use the hack solution of pasting the subscription ID into the
@Azure portal to get resources for the particular subscription account which seems highly counter intuitive since its the ONLY account. 🧐
1:22:54​ – The next thing I setup, now that I have variables that need passed in on every terraform execution, I add a script to do this for me.
1:29:35​ – Next up is adding the database to the database server and firewall rule. Also we get to see Jetbrains #Intellij​ HCL plugin introspection at work adding required properties to the firewall resource! A really useful feature.
1:38:24​ – Next up, creating the Azure container to deploy our Hasura GraphQL API for #Postgres​ to!
1:51:42​ – BAM! API Server is done and launched! I’ve got a live #GraphQL​ API up and running in Azure and we’re ready to start building a data model!
1:56:22​ – In this segment I show how to turn off the public facing console and shift one’s development workflow to the local Hasura console working against – local OR your live dev environment.
1:58:29​ – Next segment I get into schema migrations, initializing a directory structure for Hasura CLI use, and metadata, migrations, and related data. Including an update to the latest CLI so you can see how to do that, after a run into a slight glitch. 😬
2:23:02​ – I also shift over to dbdiagram to graphically build out some of the schema via their markdown, then use the SQL export option for #postgres​ combined with Hasura’s option to execute plain ole SQL via migrations…
2:31:48​ – Getting a bit more in depth in this segment, I delve through – via the Hasura console – to build out relationships between the tables and data so the graphql queries can introspect accordingly.
2:40:30​ – Next segment, graphql time! I show some of the options of what is available immediately for queries and mutations via the console.
2:50:36​ – Then some more details about metadata. I’m going to do a stream with further details, since I was a little fuzzy on some of those details myself, in the very very near future. However a good introduction to what the metadata does for the #graphql​ API.
2:59:07​ – Then as a wrap up to all of this… I nuke EVERYTHING and deploy it all out to Azure again inclusive of schema migrations, metadata, etc. 🤘🏻
3:16:30​ – Final segment, I add some data to the database and get into a few basic queries and mutations in #graphql​ via the #graphiql​ console interface in #Hasura​.

WE DID IT! DataStax Astra is GA

Yesterday we finally went full GA (General Availability) with DataStax Astra. For the quick TLDR think of it as Apache Cassandra that you can spin up as a service and use in about a minute. I, as I wrote about some months ago, joined the engineering team to help build out the system! I quickly got to reconnoitering the role and working toward build out of features, which now are available to you!

With Astra, if you’ve used Apache Cassandra or DataStax Enterprise you can use the same drivers or CQL you’re familiar with. But with Astra there are two additional capabilities we’ve just released to use in connecting to and working with your databases:

  • Astra REST API
  • Astra GraphQL API

With the REST API there are a number of capabilities to add a table, return a list of all the tables, return content of a table, and delete a table. In addition to tables, there is functionality to retrieve, retrieve all, add, update, and delete columns. All of the standard CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) commands can also be performed.

For the GraphQL API it gives you the ability to perform CRUD actions and query with filters using the GraphQL syntax.

Authorization Token

To use either of these services, the first thing you’ll need is to create one of Astra’s time based authorization tokens. These tokens work until 30 minutes after the last call made with the token. Once expired a new token must be created. To create a token an HTTP POST to the API can be made, passing several header values, and username and password in the body of a POST request.

For an example of retrieving an authorization token I’ve put together a cURL request below. To get the URL for your database navigate to the Astra dashboard, and on the summary screen of any database the API Access URL’s are listed.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://12c3bb24-e2df-4db3-b993-14707303e57c-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/rest/v1/auth \
  --header 'accept: */*' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-cassandra-request-id: 24cc6f6f-c1d9-4d4e-a4d3-e34c7d8b148a' \
  --data '{"username":"betterbot","password":"betterbot"}'

A successful request will return a result with the auth token that looks like this.

{"authToken":"9a38437f-7e03-49a8-bc5d-b4e305d7c1e8"}

With that authorization token we can now call actions against the REST, or GraphQL APIs.

Creating a Table via the Astra REST API

To create a table, we need a few key elements: The table name, whether it should create if a table exists or not, and column definitions with at least one column as a primary key. This is done by using JSON to pass this schema to the REST API. Here’s an example of some JSON that can be used to create a table.

'{"name":"products","ifNotExists":true,"columnDefinitions":
  [ {"name":"id","typeDefinition":"uuid","static":false},
    {"name":"name","typeDefinition":"text","static":false},
    {"name":"description","typeDefinition":"text","static":false},
    {"name":"price","typeDefinition":"decimal","static":false},
    {"name":"created","typeDefinition":"timestamp","static":false}],"primaryKey":
    {"partitionKey":["id"]},"tableOptions":{"defaultTimeToLive":0}}'

To use this JSON to create a table, just add the pertinent headers, insert your keyspace into the URL, and the x-cassandra-token and POST this data to the REST API end point. A cURL request to create the table would look like this.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://12c3bb24-e2df-4db3-b993-14707303e57c-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/rest/v1/keyspaces/betterbotz/tables \
  --header 'accept: */*' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-cassandra-request-id: 07e37064-b265-4618-94ce-1c4606f584f9' \
  --header 'x-cassandra-token: ' \
  --data '{"name":"products","ifNotExists":true,"columnDefinitions":
  [ {"name":"id","typeDefinition":"uuid","static":false},
    {"name":"name","typeDefinition":"text","static":false},
    {"name":"description","typeDefinition":"text","static":false},
    {"name":"price","typeDefinition":"decimal","static":false},
    {"name":"created","typeDefinition":"timestamp","static":false}],"primaryKey":
    {"partitionKey":["id"]},"tableOptions":{"defaultTimeToLive":0}}'

Adding data via a GraphQL Mutation

At this point, with a data created, we can add, update, or delete data. The sample curl statement I’ve put together here is a sample GraphQL mutation to add a record to the products table.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://ba965c97-86f1-4d38-8cne-58qa1d2209a1-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/rest/v1/keyspaces/betterbotz/tables/orders/rows \
  --header 'accept: application/json' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-cassandra-request-id: xyzaa27b-de8e-4afc-8431-8f06a326047d' \
  --header 'x-cassandra-token: 3ad1ca6a-62pq-4e1b-b273-4c08ea334909' \
  --data-raw '{"query":"mutation {superarms: insertProducts(value:{id:\"65cad0df-4fc8-42df-90e5-4effcd221ef7\"\n name:\"Arm Spec A1\" description:\"Powerful Robot Arm Spec A.\"price: \"9999.99\" created: \"2012-04-23T18:25:43.511Z\"}){value {name description price created}}}","variables":{}}'

For some other examples issuing a GraphQL mutation to add a record, just for good measure.

Go

package main

import (
  "fmt"
  "strings"
  "net/http"
  "io/ioutil"
)

func main() {

  url := "https://32c3bb24-e2df-4db3-b993-14707303e57c-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/graphql"
  method := "POST"

  payload := strings.NewReader("{\"query\":\"mutation {superarms: updateProducts(value: {id:\\\"65cad0df-4fc8-42df-90e5-4effcd221ef7\\\" name:\\\"Arm Spec A3 [Newly Updated]\\\" description:\\\"Powerful Robot Arm Spec A3.\\\" price: \\\"19999.99\\\" created: \\\"2012-04-23T18:25:43.511Z\\\" }){value {id name description price created}}}\",\"variables\":{}}")

  client := &http.Client {
  }
  req, err := http.NewRequest(method, url, payload)

  if err != nil {
    fmt.Println(err)
  }
  req.Header.Add("accept", "*/*")
  req.Header.Add("content-type", "application/json")
  req.Header.Add("X-Cassandra-Token", "e85b3021-fb89-4f43-9ba6-a64a49ba5f68")
  req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")

  res, err := client.Do(req)
  defer res.Body.Close()
  body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)

  fmt.Println(string(body))
}

Python

import requests

url = "https://32c3bb24-e2df-4db3-b993-14707303e57c-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/graphql"

payload = "{\"query\":\"mutation {superarms: updateProducts(value: {id:\\\"65cad0df-4fc8-42df-90e5-4effcd221ef7\\\" name:\\\"Arm Spec A3 [Newly Updated]\\\" description:\\\"Powerful Robot Arm Spec A3.\\\" price: \\\"19999.99\\\" created: \\\"2012-04-23T18:25:43.511Z\\\" }){value {id name description price created}}}\",\"variables\":{}}"
headers = {
  'accept': '*/*',
  'content-type': 'application/json',
  'X-Cassandra-Token': 'e85b3021-fb89-4f43-9ba6-a64a49ba5f68',
  'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}

response = requests.request("POST", url, headers=headers, data = payload)

print(response.text.encode('utf8'))

Java

OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient().newBuilder()
  .build();
MediaType mediaType = MediaType.parse("application/json");
RequestBody body = RequestBody.create(mediaType, "{\"query\":\"mutation {superarms: updateProducts(value: {id:\\\"65cad0df-4fc8-42df-90e5-4effcd221ef7\\\" name:\\\"Arm Spec A3 [Newly Updated]\\\" description:\\\"Powerful Robot Arm Spec A3.\\\" price: \\\"19999.99\\\" created: \\\"2012-04-23T18:25:43.511Z\\\" }){value {id name description price created}}}\",\"variables\":{}}");
Request request = new Request.Builder()
  .url("https://32c3bb24-e2df-4db3-b993-14707303e57c-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/graphql")
  .method("POST", body)
  .addHeader("accept", "*/*")
  .addHeader("content-type", "application/json")
  .addHeader("X-Cassandra-Token", "e85b3021-fb89-4f43-9ba6-a64a49ba5f68")
  .addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")
  .build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();

and C#!

var client = new RestClient("https://32c3bb24-e2df-4db3-b993-14707303e57c-us-east1.apps.astra.datastax.com/api/graphql");
client.Timeout = -1;
var request = new RestRequest(Method.POST);
request.AddHeader("accept", "*/*");
request.AddHeader("content-type", "application/json");
request.AddHeader("X-Cassandra-Token", "e85b3021-fb89-4f43-9ba6-a64a49ba5f68");
request.AddHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
request.AddParameter("application/json", "{\"query\":\"mutation {superarms: updateProducts(value: {id:\\\"65cad0df-4fc8-42df-90e5-4effcd221ef7\\\" name:\\\"Arm Spec A3 [Newly Updated]\\\" description:\\\"Powerful Robot Arm Spec A3.\\\" price: \\\"19999.99\\\" created: \\\"2012-04-23T18:25:43.511Z\\\" }){value {id name description price created}}}\",\"variables\":{}}",
           ParameterType.RequestBody);
IRestResponse response = client.Execute(request);
Console.WriteLine(response.Content);

With that short tour, check out your free database today @ https://astra.datastax.com/register! Feel free to ping me on Twitter @Adron or here in comments, I’m open to and would love to discuss your experience!