graphql README

The project's README from github.com/redwoodjs/graphql. As one markdown file: README.md.

RedwoodGraphQL

by Tom Preston-Werner, Peter Pistorius, Rob Cameron, David Price, and more than 250 amazing contributors (see end of file for a full list).

NOTE

⚡ Big News — We’ve launched RedwoodSDK, a modern React framework for building full-stack web apps on Cloudflare.

🌲 RedwoodSDK — React on Cloudflare

RedwoodSDK starts as a Vite plugin and unlocks:

All while keeping to web standards — you write with native Request/Response and the modern Web APIs you already know.

🚀 Try it in seconds

npx create-rwsdk my-project-name
cd my-project-name
npm run dev

📚 Read the docs
⚡ Quick Start Guide

🙌 How You Can Help

We’d love for the Redwood community to be part of this from day one:

  1. Try it out — Follow the Quick Start and build something small.
  2. Give feedback — Tell us what works, what’s confusing, and what could be better.
  3. Spread the word — Share RedwoodSDK with your friends, coworkers, and followers.
  4. Star the repo — Stars help more developers discover RedwoodSDK.

Thank you for being part of the Redwood journey — we can’t wait to see what you build with RedwoodSDK! ❤️

RedwoodJS GraphQL

Bighorn Epoch (current development epoch)

NOTE: This section of the Readme is aspirational for the current development epoch we call Bighorn. Bighorn has not yet been released, but when it is, it will fulfill the promises of what you read below. If you’d like to help us on this journey, please say hi in the Community Forums!

Redwood is a framework for quickly creating React-based web applications that provide an amazing end user experience. Our goal is to be simple and approachable enough for use in prototypes and hackathons, but performant and comprehensive enough to evolve into your next startup.

We accomplish this in two primary ways:

  1. Redwood is opinionated and full-stack. We’ve chosen the best technologies in the JS/TS ecosystem and beautifully integrated them into a cohesive framework that lets you get things done instead of endlessly evaluating technology options. You can get started using Redwood without a backend, but the framework really shines when you’re building a data driven application. Our transparent data fetching and optional GraphQL API make building and growing your application easier than you expect!

  2. Redwood’s declarative data fetching and simple form submission features are built on top of RSC + Server Actions and simplify common use cases so you can focus on your users’ experience. Creating the best, most responsive user interfaces requires reasoning about whether code should execute on the server or the client. Redwood makes it easy to choose the best execution context for your code by leveraging the power of React Server Components.

The entire framework is built with TypeScript, so you get type safety from the router to the database and everywhere in-between. If you’d rather build your app with JavaScript, you can do that too, and still enjoy great code completion features in your favorite editor.

TRY BIGHORN: While Bighorn does not yet have a production release, we do publish the latest code as canaries, and we welcome you to experiment with them! The best way to get familiar with these canaries is to keep an eye on the Redwood Blog.

Arapahoe Epoch (current stable release)

Redwood is an opinionated, full-stack, JavaScript/TypeScript web application framework designed to keep you moving fast as your app grows from side project to startup.

At the highest level, a Redwood app is a React frontend that talks to a custom GraphQL API. The API uses Prisma to operate on a database. Out of the box you get tightly integrated testing with Jest, logging with Pino, and a UI component catalog with Storybook. Setting up authentication (like Auth0) or CSS frameworks (like Tailwind CSS) are a single command line invocation away. And to top it off, Redwood's architecture allows you to deploy to either serverless providers (e.g. Netlify, Vercel) or traditional server and container providers (e.g. AWS, Render) with nearly no code changes between the two!

By making a lot of decisions for you, Redwood lets you get to work on what makes your application special, instead of wasting cycles choosing and re-choosing various technologies and configurations. Plus, because Redwood is a proper framework, you benefit from continued performance and feature upgrades over time and with minimum effort.

TUTORIAL: The best way to get to know Redwood is by going through the extensive Redwood Tutorial. Have fun!

QUICK START: You can install and run a full-stack Redwood application on your machine with only a couple commands. Check out the Quick Start guide to get started.

DOCS: Visit the full RedwoodJS Documentation for extensive reference docs and guides.

About

Redwood is the latest open source project initiated by Tom Preston-Werner, cofounder of GitHub (most popular code host on the planet), creator of Jekyll (one of the first and most popular static site generators), creator of Gravatar (the most popular avatar service on the planet), author of the Semantic Versioning specification (powers the Node packaging ecosystem), and inventor of TOML (an obvious, minimal configuration language used by many projects).

Technologies

We are obsessed with developer experience and eliminating as much boilerplate as possible. Where existing libraries elegantly solve our problems, we use them; where they don't, we write our own solutions. The end result is a JavaScript development experience you can fall in love with!

Here's a quick taste of the technologies a standard Redwood application will use:

If you'd like to use our optional built-in GraphQL API support, here's our stack:

Roadmap

A framework like Redwood has a lot of moving parts; the Roadmap is a great way to get a high-level overview of where the framework is relative to where we want it to be. And since we link to all of our GitHub project boards, it's also a great way to get involved! Roadmap

Why is it called Redwood?

(A history, by Tom Preston-Werner)

Where I live in Northern California there is a type of tree called a redwood. Redwoods are HUGE, the tallest in the world, some topping out at 115 meters (380 feet) in height. The eldest of the still-living redwoods sprouted from the ground an astonishing 3,200 years ago. To stand among them is transcendent. Sometimes, when I need to think or be creative, I will journey to my favorite grove of redwoods and walk among these giants, soaking myself in their silent grandeur.

In addition, Redwoods have a few properties that I thought would be aspirational for my nascent web app framework. Namely:

And there you have it.

Contributors

A gigantic "Thank YOU!" to everyone below who has contributed to one or more Redwood projects: Framework, Website, Docs, and Create-Redwood Template. 🚀

Core Team: Leadership


Amy Haywood Dutton
David Price
Tobbe Lundberg
Tom Preston-Werner

Core Team: Maintainer and Community Leads


David Thyresson
maintainer
Daniel Choudhury
maintainer
Keith T Elliot
community
Barrett Burnworth
community
Josh GM Walker
maintainer

Founders


Tom Preston-Werner
Peter Pistorius
Rob Cameron
David Price

Core Team: Alumni


Aldo Bucchi
Aditya Pandey
Amanda Giannelli
Alice Zhao
Simon Gagnon

Chris van der Merwe
Ryan Lockard
Peter Colapietro
noire.munich
Forrest Hayes

Robert
Anthony Campolo
Claire Froelich
Kim-Adeline Miguel
Dominic Saadi

Kris Coulson

All Contributors


Anton Moiseev
Mohsen Azimi
Christopher Burns
Terris Kremer
James George

Brett Jackson
Guilherme Pacheco
Kasper Mikiewicz
chris-hailstorm
Jai

Lachlan Campbell
Satya Rohith
Steven Normore
Mads Rosenberg
Ted Stoychev

eurobob
Vikash

graphql (redwoodjs/graphql)

Searching Database…

17.6K ·GitHub
Graphql
What is this?Redwood is an opinionated, full-stack JavaScript/TypeScript web application framework: a React frontend wired to a GraphQL API with Prisma behind it, made to take you from prototype to startup.
Is it a frontend thing, or does it cover the backend too?Both ends: a Redwood app is a React frontend talking to a custom GraphQL API that uses Prisma for the database. The GraphQL layer is optional, but data-driven apps are where the framework shines.
What does it take to spin up my first Redwood app?A couple of commands — the Quick Start guide gets a full-stack app installed and running on your machine, and the extensive tutorial is the recommended way to learn the framework.
Do I have to pick my own testing, logging and styling tools?No — Jest for testing, Pino for logging and Storybook come out of the box, and adding auth like Auth0 or a CSS framework like Tailwind is a single command line invocation away.
Is the framework in a stable state to build on right now?The current stable release is, but the next major epoch, Bighorn, has not shipped yet — its promises are aspirational and only available as experimental canary builds.
Is Redwood meant for weekend hacks or for real startups?Both, by design: it aims to be simple and approachable enough for prototypes and hackathons, yet performant and comprehensive enough to evolve into your next startup.
Where can I deploy an app built with Redwood?Either serverless platforms like Netlify and Vercel or traditional server and container providers like AWS and Render, with nearly no code changes between the two.
What is RedwoodSDK?A newly launched companion project from the same team: React on Cloudflare. It starts as a Vite plugin and unlocks SSR, React Server Components, Server Functions, streaming and realtime, plus first-class Cloudflare services like Workers, D1, Durable Objects and R2.
Why is it called Redwood?After the giant redwood trees of Northern California, which the author finds aspirational for a web framework: beautiful as saplings and majestic when grown, dense small pinecones (more done with less code), fire resistance (robustness), and simple up close despite looking complex from afar.
Which GraphQL libraries does it use under the hood?The optional built-in API is built on GraphQL Yoga and Envelop on the server side, with Apollo Client on the React frontend and Prisma handling the database.
Does it help me decide what runs on the server and what in the browser?Yes — its declarative data fetching and form submission are built on React Server Components and Server Actions, so choosing the right execution context for each piece of code is part of the framework.
What are similar projects?wasp, open-saas, kit, gatsby, nitro, vinext, ice, gin-vue-admin
Which topics is it in?apollo, jamstack, tailwind, prisma, full-stack, ssr, serverless, graphql, cloudflare, vite, cloud, backend
Creator
redwoodjs
Size
447.9 MB
Stars
17.6K
Updated
CommitDec 13Releasev8.9.0Oct 21
Age
7y
Commits · 90 Days