# Getting started

### What is `typegql`?

typegql is set of decorators allowing creating GraphQL APIs quickly and in type-safe way.

## Creating very simple schema

Schema is main building block of any `graphql` schema. It'll join all parts of our api together.

In `typegql` to create schema, we need to pass class decorated with `@Schema` to `compileSchema` function

```ts
import { Schema, compileSchema} from 'typegql

@Schema()
class SuperSchema {
  // fields implementation
}

const compiledSchema = compileSchema(SuperSchema);
```

`compiledSchema` from example above is standard, regular `graphql` schema.

## Adding Query and Mutation fields

Any working schema requires at least one Query field. There are special decorators - `@Query` and `@Mutation` used to register root fields of schema.

Very simple fully working schema like

```graphql
{
  hello # will resolve to 'world'
}
```

Could be implemented as:

```typescript
import { Schema, Query, compileSchema} from 'typegql

@Schema()
class SuperSchema {
  @Query()
  hello(): string {
    return 'world'
  }
}

const compiledSchema = compileSchema(SuperSchema);
```

## Adding parameters

Let's add some customization to our schema:

```graphql
{
  hello(name: "Bob") # will resolve to 'Hello, Bob!'
}
```

With tiny change in our code:

```typescript
import { Schema, Query, compileSchema} from 'typegql

@Schema()
class SuperSchema {
  @Query()
  hello(name: string): string {
    return `Hello, ${name}!`;
  }
}

const compiledSchema = compileSchema(SuperSchema);
```

## Adding nested types

For now, our query field returned scalar (string). Let's return something more complex. Schema will look like:

```graphql
mutation {
  createProduct(name: "Chair", price: 99.99) {
    name
    price
    isExpensive
  }
}
```

Such query will have a bit more code and here it is:

```typescript
import { Schema, Query, ObjectType, Field, Mutation, compileSchema} from 'typegql;

@ObjectType({ description: 'Simple product object type' })
class Product {
  @Field()
  name: string;

  @Field()
  price: number;

  @Field()
  isExpensive() {
    return this.price > 50;
  }
}

@Schema()
class SuperSchema {
  @Mutation()
  createProduct(name: string, price: number): Product {
    const product = new Product();
    product.name = name;
    product.price = price;
    return product;
  }
}

const compiledSchema = compileSchema(SuperSchema);
```

## Forcing field type.

Since now, `typegql` was able to guess type of every field from typescript type definitions.

There are, however, some cases where we'd have to define them explicitly.

* We want to strictly tell if field is nullable or not
* Function we use returns type of `Promise<SomeType>` while field itself is typed as `SomeType`
* List (Array) type is used. (For now, typescript `Reflect` api is not able to guess type of single array item. This might change in the future)

Let's modify our `Product` so it has additional `categories` field that will return array of strings. For sake of readibility, I'll ommit all fields we've defined previously.

```typescript
@ObjectType()
class Product {
  @Field({ type: [String] }) // note we can use any native type like GraphQLString!
  categories(): string[] {
    return ['Tables', 'Furniture'];
  }
}
```

We've added `{ type: [String] }` as `@Field` options. Type can be anything that is resolvable to `GraphQL` type

* Native JS scalars: `String`, `Number`, `Boolean`.
* Any type that is already compiled to `graphql` eg. `GraphQLFloat` or any type from external graphql library etc
* Every class decorated with `@ObjectType`
* One element array of any of above for list types eg. `[String]` or `[GraphQLFloat]`

## Writing Asynchroniously

Every field function we write can be `async` and return `Promise`. Let's say, instead of hard-coding our categories, we want to fetch it from some external API:

```typescript
@ObjectType()
class Product {
  @Field({ type: [String] }) // note we can use any native type like GraphQLString!
  async categories(): Promise<string[]> {
    const categories = await api.fetchCategories();
    return categories.map(cat => cat.name);
  }
}
```

## Adding to your project

[Installation and setup](getting-started/setup.md)

**Important!** setup steps are simple, but required. Make sure to check [setup](getting-started/setup.md) section.
