Feature: Query multiple node types simultaneously

[uttrasey]

I'm using the gatsby-source-contentful and would like, in a single query, to be able to order and paginate several content types simultaneously.

The use case for this is a "latest content feed" which co-mingles 3 different content types chronologically based on a publishDate field which I've added to each of the CMS content models.

I've been reading about GraphQL Unions and Interfaces as a means to dealing with different content types collectively.

I'm keen to know if this is achievable and what the best approach is.

[KyleAMathews]

This seems like a really valuable area to explore. There's definitely lots of times you want to query multiple types at once like your "content feed" use case.

A few ways we could handle this:

• A source plugin creates union/interface types as it makes sense for their data
• A site builder can manually group types into a new union type
• We expose a new hook to do this programatically
• Automatically infer interfaces based on common fields — e.g. all Contentful node types could share a number of fields e.g. your publishDate — it'd be fairly straightforward to infer this and generate a new interface type based on the common fields.

People have any other ideas?

[uttrasey]

I think automatically inferring might be tricky where as allowing programatic union definition would allow for more control / use cases. For example not everything with a publishDate should appear in my "content feed".

Being relatively new to gatsby I don't have a strong feeling on how to expose this functionality hook vs plugin. Thoughts?

[KyleAMathews]

I think automatically inferring might be tricky where as allowing programatic union definition would allow for more control / use cases. For example not everything with a publishDate should appear in my "content feed"

👍 also someone could easily write a plugin to do the automatic inference. Always better to start low-level and manual in core and then experiment with higher-level primitives in userland.

Plugins use hooks so both :-) Probably the best way to land this is to add a PR with the new API hook along with an example site demoing its use and then if there's a really solid plugin that can automate some of this, add that as well.

This would be really exciting functionality to add!

[uttrasey]

Sounds good. I'm going to try and get something raised early next week 👌

[uttrasey]

Raised something super rough to get feedback #2990

[KyleAMathews]

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