The Experience Edge schema

Abstract

Learn more about entry points, endpoints, and template definitions.

Sitecore Experience Edge has a read-only GraphQL schema designed to accommodate common front-end use cases for headless Sitecore development. It exposes limited information about Sitecore items. For example, there are no Standard Fields available.

The following queries are available as entry points:

item - allows querying an item by path or ID.
layout - allows querying an item by site and route path, typically for the purpose of accessing its Layout Service JSON (rendered).
search - allows constructing a Boolean field search query for finding items by field value or common properties.

For more information, see the example queries and use the Docs tab in the GraphQL testing UI of the Preview endpoint IDE.

Template projection

The types available in the Experience Edge schema reflect the template definitions of the Sitecore instance that published to it. You can enable strongly-typed template fields by using inline fragments that select fields from specific types.

In Sitecore, multiple templates can have the same name and templates with field names that conflict with core fields on the item graph type. In GraphQL, the names of types and fields must be unique. When a naming collision occurs, the item or field item with the newest creation date has _{guid} appended to the name. The creation date is used because the ordering must be stable, and a graph type name must never change after it has been referenced.

Note

GraphQL types are only created for templates that follow the Helix content structure. This means that GraphQL types are generated only for templates under the following paths:

<foundation>/sitecore/templates/Foundation</foundation>
<feature>/sitecore/templates/Feature</feature>
<project>/sitecore/templates/Project</project>
<userdefined>/sitecore/templates/User Defined</userdefined>

Pagination

Paginated queries and fields in the Experience Edge schema, such as the search query, utilize a cursor-based system to request result pages.

For paginated queries:

Query arguments include first (number of results to return) and after (the beginning cursor). first has a default value of 10.
Query results include pageInfo with hasNext (whether there are more results) and endCursor (used in the after argument to obtain the next page).
Query results also include total (provides the total number of available results).
Note
The first argument has a special meaning to query the complexity calculation used by the underlying GraphQL library of the Preview schema. In particular, using the nested children field on the Item graph type, can cause errors, such as Query is too complex to execute. The following section includes recommendations for handling query complexity.

Query complexity

The Experience Edge query complexity is limited to 250. We recommend you test your query before using it in a runtime environment, to make sure it meets the complexity requirements. If your query is too complex, try the following:

Break it into multiple smaller queries. For example, use one query to retrieve a data set, and apply subsequent queries to that dataset. Large queries of multiple objects increase query complexity substantially.
Remove unnecessary fields from the query.

Available fields for content search

Experience Edge includes standard fields for the GraphQL search query. You can also use all fields of included templates (by their original template field name) for content search queries.

The following table describes the standard fields available for the search query on the Edge schema:

Field	Description
_templates	All template GUIDs, including base (multi-valued).
_path	All parents by GUID (multi-valued).
_parent	The ID of the item’s immediate parent.
_name	The item name.
_language	The item language.
_hasLayout	Reflects whether the item has presentation details/layout data.