ArticleConnection

A connection to a list of Article items, designed to support efficient cursor-based pagination. This connection type provides access to the articles themselves, their edges, pagination metadata, and the total count of articles available.

Connection Structure

{
  edges: [ArticleEdge]
  nodes: [Article]
  pageInfo: PageInfo!
  totalCount: Int
}

Pagination Arguments

The ArticleConnection supports the following pagination arguments to navigate through the list of articles:

These arguments enable forward and backward pagination using opaque cursors.

PageInfo Structure

The pageInfo field provides metadata about the current page of results:

{
  hasNextPage: Boolean!
  hasPreviousPage: Boolean!
  startCursor: String
  endCursor: String
}

• hasNextPage: Indicates if there are more items when paginating forward.
• hasPreviousPage: Indicates if there are more items when paginating backward.
• startCursor: The cursor corresponding to the first item in the current page.
• endCursor: The cursor corresponding to the last item in the current page.

These fields help clients determine navigation possibilities and construct subsequent queries.

Usage Examples

Basic Pagination

Fetch the first 5 articles with their IDs and titles:

{
  articles(first: 5) {
    nodes {
      id
      title
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
    totalCount
  }
}

Forward Pagination

Fetch the next 5 articles after a given cursor:

{
  articles(first: 5, after: "YXJyYXljb25uZWN0aW9uOjQ=") {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
      }
      cursor
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
  }
}

Backward Pagination

Fetch the previous 5 articles before a given cursor:

{
  articles(last: 5, before: "YXJyYXljb25uZWN0aW9uOjEw") {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
      }
      cursor
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasPreviousPage
      startCursor
    }
  }
}

Cursor-based Navigation

Navigate through articles using cursors to fetch pages efficiently:

# Initial request to get the first page and its endCursor
{
  articles(first: 3) {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
      }
      cursor
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
  }
}
 
# Use endCursor from previous response to fetch the next page
{
  articles(first: 3, after: "YXJyYXljb25uZWN0aW9uOjM=") {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
      }
      cursor
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
  }
}

Combined with Filtering

Assuming the articles query supports filtering by category and sorting by publishedDate, combine pagination with these arguments:

{
  articles(first: 5, after: "YXJyYXljb25uZWN0aW9uOjU=", filter: { category: "Technology" }, sort: { field: PUBLISHED_DATE, direction: DESC }) {
    nodes {
      id
      title
      publishedDate
      category
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
    totalCount
  }
}

Note: Filtering and sorting arguments are examples; only use them if supported by the API.

Edge Type

The ArticleEdge type represents a single edge in the connection and contains:

{
  node: Article
  cursor: String!
}

• node: The article item at the edge.
• cursor: An opaque string used for pagination to identify the position of this edge.

Edges provide the link between the connection and the actual article nodes, enabling cursor-based pagination.

Pagination Best Practices

• Use first with after for forward pagination and last with before for backward pagination to avoid ambiguous results.
• Always check pageInfo.hasNextPage and pageInfo.hasPreviousPage before attempting to paginate further.
• Use the cursors returned in edges.cursor or pageInfo.startCursor / pageInfo.endCursor for reliable navigation.
• Avoid large page sizes to reduce response times and improve performance.
• Handle empty results gracefully by checking if nodes or edges arrays are empty.

Performance Considerations

• Cursor-based pagination is efficient for large datasets as it avoids offset-based scanning.
• Limit the number of items requested per page to balance response size and user experience.
• Use filtering and sorting to narrow down results before paginating.
• Cache cursors when possible to reduce repeated queries.
• Monitor rate limits when performing frequent paginated queries.

Related Types

• [ArticleEdge]: Represents edges in the connection, containing an article node and a cursor.
• [Article]: The article object type containing article-specific fields.
• [PageInfo]: Provides pagination metadata such as cursors and page availability.

Notes

• The API currently requires no authentication for querying articles, but this may change in future versions.
• Always implement error handling for invalid cursors or out-of-range pagination arguments.
• When the result set is empty, edges and nodes will be empty arrays, and pageInfo.hasNextPage and pageInfo.hasPreviousPage will be false.
• For single-page results, pagination arguments like first or last may return fewer items than requested, with pageInfo.hasNextPage and pageInfo.hasPreviousPage set accordingly.
• Be mindful of rate limiting when making multiple paginated requests in quick succession.