AskQL is the next step after GraphQL and Serverless.
With AskQL developers can attach scripts to queries that are executed serverside. The AskQL parser accepts the GraphQL query format so there's no learning curve. Because the scripts are executed serverside and the results can be cached it's great for Web Vitals and app performance. Think of it as a programmable GraphQL.
Read a great articly on AskQL as a GraphQL alternative
Deploy your dynamic JAMStack, Mobile, CMS apps with no backend development required.
By doing so frontend developers needing additional API endpoints are no longer bound by the backend development release cycles. They can send the middleware/endpoint code along with the query. No deployments, no custom resolvers, lambdas required.
It's safe
AskQL uses the isolated Virtual Machine to execute the scripts and the resources concept that let you fully controll what integrations, collections and other data sources are accessible to the scripts. Moreover features like Access management and Secrets management are on their way.
Business loves it
We're working on a set of built in resources integrating AskQL with MACH data sources like eCommerce platforms (SFCC, Commercetools), databases (MongoDB, MySQL) etc. By having it all in - frontend devs can directly access the data sources, processing the data server-side, with no additional API endpoints, middlewares required. It' shortening the integration time a lot,
By the way, it's a Turning-complete query and programming language :-)
AskQL comes with whole variety of default resources (resource is equivalent of GraphQL resolver). You should definitely read the Introduction to AskQL by @YonatanKra and AskQL Quickstart
<img src="https://xfaang-assets.s3.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com/diagrams/REST_API_approach.png" align="center" title="Rest" height=50% width=50%><img src="https://xfaang-assets.s3.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com/diagrams/AskQL_approach-update-july2020.jpg" align="center" title="AskQL" height=50% width=50%>
Benefits for development process:
Benefits for programmers:
await
keyword - cleaner codeBenefits for business:
node >=12.14
You can use AskQL right away - both as the CLI scripting for extending your Node's app or as a GraphQL endpoint alternative. Howeve'r were working an some cool features making it even easier for business use-cases and You're invited to contribute :)
In your Node project run:
npm install askql
You can use AskQL interpreter for variety of use cases:
Sample server. Checkout full demo from @YonatanKra repo.
import askql from "askql";
import express from 'express';
import bodyParser from 'body-parser';
const { askExpressMiddleware } = middlewareFactory;
const { resources } = askql; // resources available to AskQL Scripts
const values = { }; // values available to AskQL scripts
export const askMiddleware = askExpressMiddleware(
{ resources, values },
{ callNext: true, passError: true }
);
const port = 8080;
const app = express();
app.use(express.static('public'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: true}));
app.post('/ask', [askMiddleware]);
app.listen(port, () => {
console.log(`AskQL listening at http://localhost:${port}`);
});
Sample index.js file:
const askql = require("askql");
(async () => {
const result = await askql.runUntyped(
{ resources: askql.askvm.resources },
askql.parse("ask { 'hello world!' }")
);
console.log(JSON.stringify(result, null, 2));
})();
AskQL comes with whole variety of default resources (resource is equivalent of GraphQL resolver). You should definitely read the Introduction to AskQL by @YonatanKra and AskQL Quickstart
Query the Star Wars characters with AskQL and the fetch
builtin resource:
ask {
fetch('https://swapi.dev/api/people'):at('results'):map(fun(swCharacter) {
{
Name: swCharacter.name,
Gender: swCharacter.gender,
'Hair Color': swCharacter.hair_color
}
})
}
Please find all important information here:
Clone the repository
git clone git@github.com:xFAANG/askql.git
For Linux it is advised to install autoreconf as it is used by one of the Node packages used by AskScript Playground.
For Ubuntu/Debian run: sudo apt-get install autoconf
Install dependencies:
npm i
Build the project:
npm run build
Link the project to askql command:
npm link
Now you should be able to launch the interpreter (we use REPL for that):
askql
You can find all the examples in __tests__
folders (e.g. 👉 AskScript tests) or in the Usage section below.
Find AskQL documentation here.
The Documentation is divided into 4 parts:
Do not hesitate to try it out yourself! You can also find fellow AskQL devs in our Discord community.
Similar to python
or node
, AskScript CLI allows the user to type AskScript programs and get immediate result.
In order to run CLI:
Build the code:
npm run build
Run:
node dist/cli.js
Every input is treated as an AskScript program. For convenience, CLI expects just the body of your program, without ask{
}
.
The editor has 2 modes - a default single-line mode and a multiline mode.
In order to enter the multiline mode, please type .editor
.
At the end of your multiline input please press Ctrl+D.
$ node dist/cli.js
🦄 .editor
// Entering editor mode (^D to finish, ^C to cancel)
const a = 'Hello'
a:concat(' world')
(Ctrl+D pressed)
Result:
string ask(let('a','Hello'),call(get('concat'),get('a'),' world'))
'Hello world'
As the output CLI always prints AskCode (which would be sent to an AskVM machine if the code was executed over the network) and the result of the AskScript program.
In AskQL we only use single quotes:
🦄 'Hello world'
string ask('Hello world')
'Hello world'
In the response you get a compiled version of the program that is sent asynchronously to the AskVM.
🦄 4
int ask(4)
4
🦄 4.2
float ask(4.2)
4.2
fetch
resource to get the current India's COVID19 stats:ask {
fetch('https://api.covid19india.org/data.json')['cases_time_series']
:map(fun(dataSet) {
return {
data: dataSet['date'],
dailyconfirmed: dataSet['dailyconfirmed'],
dailydeceased: dataSet['dailydeceased'],
dailyrecovered: dataSet['dailyrecovered']
}
})
}
ctrl + d
Here is the link to our AskQL playground!
Copy .env.example to .env and set PLAYGROUND_PORT
and PLAYGROUND_ASK_SERVER_URL
appropriately. You can also set the optional GTM
variable to your Google Tag Manager code.
or
You can also specify the variables in command line when running the Playground.
Compile Playground:
npm run playground:build
or
npm run build
Run it:
npm run playground:start
You can specify port and server URL in command line:
PLAYGROUND_PORT=8080 PLAYGROUND_ASK_SERVER_URL="http://localhost:1234" npm run playground:start
Some files in the Playground come or are inspired by https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript-Node-Starter (MIT) and https://github.com/Coffeekraken/code-playground (MIT).
Run:
npm run build
Run:
node dist/playground-backend/express/demoAskScriptServer.js
If you want to specify custom port, run:
PORT=1234 node dist/playground-backend/express/demoAskScriptServer.js
instead.
ask { <askscript> }
and eval( <javascript> )
?JavaScript's eval( <javascript> )
is terrible at ensuring security. One can execute there any code on any resources available in Javascript. Moreover there is no control over time of execution or stack size limit.
On contrary, Ask's ask { <askscript> }
runs by default on a secure, sandboxed AskVM, which has a separate execution context. We have built in control mechanisms that only allow using external resources you configured. Ask programs are also run with the limits on execution time and stack size restrictions you define.
If you didn't find answers to your questions here, write on our Discord community. We will both help you with the first steps and discuss more advanced topics.
The code in this project is licensed under MIT license.
<img src="https://xfaang-assets.s3.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com/logo/logo.png" align="left" title="xFAANG Logo" width="236">