Relay Global Object Identification Specification

1Reserved Types

A GraphQL Relay server must reserve certain types and type names to support the object identification model used by Relay. In particular, this spec creates guidelines for the following types:

• An interface named Node.
• The node field on the root query type.

2Node Interface

The server must provide an interface called Node. That interface must include exactly one field, called id that returns a non‐null ID.

This id should be a globally unique identifier for this object, and given just this id, the server should be able to refetch the object.

{
  __type(name: "Node") {
    name
    kind
    fields {
      name
      type {
        kind
        ofType {
          name
          kind
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "__type": {
    "name": "Node",
    "kind": "INTERFACE",
    "fields": [
      {
        "name": "id",
        "type": {
          "kind": "NON_NULL",
          "ofType": {
            "name": "ID",
            "kind": "SCALAR"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

3Node root field

The server must provide a root field called node that returns the Node interface. This root field must take exactly one argument, a non‐null ID named id.

If a query returns an object that implements Node, then this root field should refetch the identical object when value returned by the server in the Node‘s id field is passed as the id parameter to the node root field.

The server must make a best effort to fetch this data, but it may not always be possible; for example, the server may return a User with a valid id, but when the request is made to refetch that user with the node root field, the user’s database may be unavailable, or the user may have deleted their account. In this case, the result of querying this field should be null.

{
  __schema {
    queryType {
      fields {
        name
        type {
          name
          kind
        }
        args {
          name
          type {
            kind
            ofType {
              name
              kind
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "__schema": {
    "queryType": {
      "fields": [
        // This array may have other entries
        {
          "name": "node",
          "type": {
            "name": "Node",
            "kind": "INTERFACE"
          },
          "args": [
            {
              "name": "id",
              "type": {
                "kind": "NON_NULL",
                "ofType": {
                  "name": "ID",
                  "kind": "SCALAR"
                }
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

4Field stability

If two objects appear in a query, both implementing Node with identical IDs, then the two objects must be equal.

For the purposes of this definition, object equality is defined as follows:

• If a field is queried on both objects, the result of querying that field on the first object must be equal to the result of querying that field on the second object.
  • If the field returns a scalar, equality is defined as is appropriate for that scalar.
  • If the field returns an enum, equality is defined as both fields returning the same enum value.
  • If the field returns an object, equality is defined recursively as per the above.

For example:

{
  fourNode: node(id: "4") {
    id
    ... on User {
      name
      userWithIdOneGreater {
        id
        name
      }
    }
  }
  fiveNode: node(id: "5") {
    id
    ... on User {
      name
      userWithIdOneLess {
        id
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

might return:

{
  "fourNode": {
    "id": "4",
    "name": "Mark Zuckerberg",
    "userWithIdOneGreater": {
      "id": "5",
      "name": "Chris Hughes"
    }
  },
  "fiveNode": {
    "id": "5",
    "name": "Chris Hughes",
    "userWithIdOneLess": {
      "id": "4",
      "name": "Mark Zuckerberg",
    }
  }
}

Because fourNode.id and fiveNode.userWithIdOneLess.id are the same, we are guaranteed by the conditions above that fourNode.name must be the same as fiveNode.userWithIdOneLess.name, and indeed it is.

5Plural identifying root fields

Imagine a root field named username, that takes a user’s username and returns the corresponding user:

{
  username(username: "zuck") {
    id
  }
}

might return:

{
  "username": {
    "id": "4",
  }
}

Clearly, we can link up the object in the response, the user with ID 4, with the request, identifying the object with username “zuck”. Now imagine a root field named usernames, that takes a list of usernames and returns a list of objects:

{
  usernames(usernames: ["zuck", "moskov"]) {
    id
  }
}

might return:

{
  "usernames": [
    {
      "id": "4",
    },
    {
      "id": "6"
    }
  ]
}

For Relay to be able to link the usernames to the responses, it needs to know that the array in the response will be the same size as the array passed as an argument, and that the order in the response will match the order in the argument. We call these plural identifying root fields, and their requirements are described below.