Allow-list of operations¶

Introduction¶

The Allow-list is a list of safe operations (GraphQL queries, mutations or subscriptions) that is stored by the GraphQL engine in its metadata. When enabled, it can be used to restrict the GraphQL engine so that it executes only those operations that are present in the list (available after version v1.0.0-beta.1).

Adding or removing a operation in allow-list¶

You can add or remove a operation in the allow-list in two ways:

• Using the console: Head to the Settings (⚙) –> Allow list section in the console. You can add a new operation to the allow-list or upload a list of new operations from a file that will be added to the allow-list. You can also see a list of existing operations in the allow-list and delete them individually.

  • You can add an individual operation, like the one below, manually to the allow-list with a unique name. Note that this unique name is just an identifier for the query in the collection, it is not related to the operation name of the query.

    query ($id: Int!){
       user_by_pk(id: $id){
         __typename
         id
         name
         company
       }
    }
    

  • You can upload files, like this sample file, to add multiple operations to the allow-list (each operation needs to have a name).

• Using metadata APIs: Queries can be stored in collections and a collection can be added to or removed from the allow-list. See Collections & Allow-list APIs for API reference.

Enable allow-list¶

The allow-list validation can be enabled by setting the HASURA_GRAPHQL_ENABLE_ALLOWLIST environment variable to true or running the GraphQL engine with the --enable-allowlist flag (default value is false). See reference docs.

Recommended usage¶

The following are the recommended best practices for enabling/disabling allow-list based validation:

• In development instances: During development or in dev instances, disable allow-list (default setting) to allow complete access to the GraphQL schema. Add/remove operations in the allow-list and then export the metadata for version-control (so you can apply it to other instances).
• In CI/CD instances: Enable the allow-list for testing.
• In production instances: Enabling the allow-list is highly recommended when running the GraphQL engine in production.