Apollo Sandbox
Use the Explorer with any GraphQL server
Apollo Sandbox is a special instance of the Explorer that doesn't require an Apollo account. Sandbox doesn't support certain Explorer features like schema history, but it's great for local development.
Sandbox automatically attempts to connect to a GraphQL server running at http://localhost:4000. You can use the box at the top of Sandbox to change this URL to any local or remote GraphQL endpoint that's accessible by your browser:
To try out Sandbox with an example GraphQL API, you can set its URL to
https://swapi-graphql.netlify.app/.netlify/functions/index.
Publishing schemas from Sandbox
⚠️ Sandbox does not yet support publishing subgraph schemas to Studio for a federated graph.
If you're signed in to Sandbox with your Apollo account, you can publish your GraphQL server's schema to any Studio graph and variant you have the necessary permissions for.
To do so, first click Publish at the top of Sandbox:
Then use the dropdown to select where in Studio to publish your schema. You can publish to any of the following:
- An entirely new graph
- A new variant of an existing graph
- An existing variant of an existing graph
After you select an option, a dialog appears that enables you to select or create a graph and variant to publish to. After you make your selections, click Confirm to publish.
When Sandbox finishes publishing your schema, it redirects you to your selected variant in Studio.
In-Sandbox schema diffs and checks
Apollo Sandbox provides schema diffs and checks to help you validate changes to your development schema before you publish those changes to Studio.
These features require you to be signed in to Sandbox with your Apollo account.
Schema diffs
From Sandbox, open the Schema Diff page from the left navigation panel. Then use the dropdown menus to select any accessible organization, graph, and variant to compare against:
In addition to viewing the diff on this page, you can click Run a Check in the upper-right to run schema checks against the currently selected variant.
Schema checks
Schema checks require both a paid Studio plan and usage reporting data from your GraphQL server.
Organization members with the
Consumerrole cannot run schema checks.
From Sandbox, open the Checks page from the left navigation panel:
Select any accessible organization, graph, and variant to check against and click Run a check. When the check completes, Sandbox displays a result summary:
To view the result's full details in Studio, click Go to details.
Offline Sandbox
You can use Sandbox without an internet connection if you're querying a graph running on localhost. To do so, open Sandbox in your browser at least once while connected to the internet. You can then use that browser to open Sandbox while offline.
Reconnecting
Sandbox automatically reconnects to Apollo Studio whenever your internet connection is restored. When it does, it might display a notification that your Apollo Studio application version is stale by at least 24 hours. You can click the notification to update all of your browser's open Apollo Studio tabs to the latest version.
This notification indicates only that the Apollo Studio UI is out of date. Your Studio data is always kept up to date.