English for Hasura GraphQL Engine

Hasura’s whole pitch is generating a GraphQL API directly from your database schema, which means most bugs teams hit aren’t in hand-written resolver code — they’re in permissions, relationships, or tracking configuration. Naming these Hasura-specific concepts precisely is what makes debugging sessions productive instead of confusing.

Key Vocabulary

Tracked table — a database table that Hasura has been explicitly configured to expose through its auto-generated GraphQL API; an untracked table simply doesn’t appear in the schema at all. “The new column showed up in the database but not in the API — turns out the table itself was never tracked in Hasura after the migration ran.”

Permission rule — a row- and column-level access policy defined per role (like user or admin) that determines which rows a query can return and which fields can be selected, inserted, or updated. “The bug wasn’t in our frontend code — the user role’s permission rule was missing a filter, so it was returning other users’ rows in addition to the current user’s own.”

Relationship (object / array) — a defined link between two tracked tables (often derived from a foreign key) that lets a GraphQL query nest related data, an object relationship for a single related row and an array relationship for many. “We added an array relationship from authors to books so a single query can fetch an author along with every book they’ve written, instead of making a separate request per book.”

Remote schema — an external GraphQL API that Hasura stitches into its own schema, letting clients query Hasura’s database-backed types and a third-party or custom service’s types in one request. “The recommendation logic lives in a separate microservice, so we added it as a remote schema — clients can query products and recommendations together without knowing two services are involved.”

Hasura action — a way to extend Hasura’s auto-generated API with custom business logic, defined as a GraphQL mutation or query that Hasura forwards to a webhook you control, when the logic can’t be expressed as a plain database operation. “Sending a welcome email isn’t something Hasura can generate automatically, so we defined it as an action that calls our own webhook after the underlying insert happens.”

Common Phrases

• “Is this table actually tracked in Hasura, or does it just exist in the database without being exposed?”
• “Is the missing data a permission-rule problem, or is the relationship itself not configured?”
• “Should this be an object relationship or an array relationship, given the cardinality here?”
• “Is this logic something Hasura can auto-generate, or do we need a custom action with a webhook?”
• “Is this type coming from our tracked tables, or is it actually served through a remote schema?”

Example Sentences

Debugging a permissions issue: “Users were seeing other people’s draft posts — the permission rule for the user role was filtering on published = true for reads but had no filter at all on the row-level select for drafts.”

Explaining a schema design decision: “We added the array relationship from orders to order_items so the frontend can fetch a full order in one query, instead of the client making N follow-up requests per item.”

Describing an architecture choice in a review: “We’re stitching in the payments service as a remote schema rather than replicating its data into our own tables, since payment state needs to stay authoritative in that service.”

Professional Tips

• Say tracked explicitly when a table’s data isn’t showing up in the API — it’s usually the first thing to check and often the actual root cause.
• Name the specific permission rule and role involved when discussing an access bug — “permissions are wrong” is far less actionable than “the user role’s select permission is missing a filter.”
• Distinguish object and array relationships precisely in schema reviews — picking the wrong cardinality early causes confusing null-versus-list bugs downstream.
• Use action deliberately when proposing custom logic — it signals you’ve already ruled out expressing the behavior as a plain database operation, which is Hasura’s default and preferred path.

Practice Exercise

1. Explain what it means for a table to be “tracked” in Hasura.
2. Describe the difference between an object relationship and an array relationship.
3. Write a sentence explaining when you’d reach for a Hasura action instead of relying on auto-generated CRUD.