Publish Schemas to GraphOS using Rover

This guide covers how to publish schemas using the Rover CLI. Consult the Platform API guide to learn how to use the API for publication.

Prerequisites

1. Install the Rover CLI.

2. Authenticate Rover with GraphOS.

Publish subgraph schemas

When working with supergraphs, you individually publish each subgraph's schema to GraphOS. Every time you publish a subgraph schema, GraphOS attempts to compose all latest versions of your subgraph schemas into a single supergraph schema.

To publish a subgraph schema to GraphOS:

1. Identify the name of the subgraph you're publishing to. You can view the names of your existing subgraphs from your variant's Subgraphs page in GraphOS Studio.

2. If you're publishing a subgraph for the first time, also obtain the routing URL of that subgraph. This is the URL that your router will use to communicate with the subgraph.

   • If GraphOS already knows your subgraph's routing URL, you don't need to provide this value unless you're changing it.

3. Run the rover subgraph publish command and provide it your subgraph's schema either via a path to a local file or via an introspection.

   Bash

   Provide a local .graphql path

   copy

    rover subgraph publish my-graph@my-variant \
      --name locations \
      --routing-url https://flyby-locations-sub.herokuapp.com/ \
      --schema ./schema.graphql

   Bash

   Provide an introspection result via stdin

   copy

   rover subgraph introspect http://localhost:4000 | \
     rover subgraph publish my-graph@my-variant \
     --name locations \
     --routing-url https://flyby-locations-sub.herokuapp.com/ \
     --schema -

Publish monograph schemas

For monographs, the publication process is simpler:

1. Decide how you'll provide your server's schema to Rover. You can either:

   • Use a .gql or .graphql file saved on your local machine, or

   • Perform an introspection query on your running server to fetch the schema

2. Run the rover graph publish command, providing your schema in one of the ways shown:

   Bash

   Provide a local .graphql file path

   copy

    rover graph publish my-graph@my-variant \
      --schema ./schema.graphql

   Bash

   Provide an introspection result via stdin

   copy

   rover graph introspect http://localhost:4000 | \
     rover graph publish my-graph@my-variant --schema -

   As shown, the first positional argument you provide rover graph publish is a graph ref, a string that specifies a particular variant of a particular graph in GraphOS.

Publish with continuous delivery

To get the most out of GraphOS, you should publish each update to any production schema as soon as it occurs. Consequently, schema publishing should be part of your continuous delivery pipeline.

Here's a sample continuous delivery configuration for schema publishing in CircleCI:

1version: 2
2
3jobs:
4  build:
5    docker:
6      - image: circleci/node:8
7
8    steps:
9      - checkout
10
11      - run: npm install
12
13      - run:
14          name: Install Rover
15          command: |
16            # Download and install Rover
17            # This is pinned to a specific version for predictability in CI
18            curl -sSL https://rover.apollo.dev/nix/v0.8.1 | sh
19
20            # This allows the PATH changes to persist to the next `run` step
21            echo 'export PATH=$HOME/.rover/bin:$PATH' >> $BASH_ENV
22
23      # Start the GraphQL server.  If a different command is used to
24      # start the server, use it in place of `npm start` here.
25      - run:
26          name: Starting server
27          command: npm start
28          background: true
29
30      # make sure the server has enough time to start up before running
31      # commands against it
32      - run: sleep 5
33
34      # When running on the 'main' branch, push the latest version
35      # of the schema to GraphOS.
36      - run: |
37          if [ "${CIRCLE_BRANCH}" == "main" ]; then
38            rover subgraph publish my-graph@my-variant \
39              --schema ./schema.graphql \
40              --name locations \
41              --routing-url https://products.example.com
42          fi

Additional resources

• Rover subgraph commands (for supergraphs)

• Rover graph commands (for monographs)

• Rover CI/CD guide