Is it possible to query my running apollo graphqlserver locally, without using http?

I'm running a Graphql server from Apollo, and the objective is fetch some data. However, I need this data locally - on the same server. Is that possible, or is the only way to query the Apollo server using http?

I know that I could possible accomplish this without using GraphQl, and just access the data layer, but the thing is that I would like to benefit from:

• Authorization
• Dataloaders
• Already built-in optimization in our Graphql Api

I already have a working solution where I just use node-fetch to query localhost, but it seems like quite a bit of overhead.

Yes it is possible!

Apollo makes the schema building and execution for you, but you can also do it yourself. Here is a mini example based on the apollo-server-express package. I create the schema and then give it to the apollo-server. Look below the server startup, I also create a query-string, then parse it and execute it without apollo and without an http request.

const express = require('express');
const { ApolloServer, gql, makeExecutableSchema } = require('apollo-server-express');
const { parse } = require('graphql/language')
const { execute } = require('graphql')

// Construct a schema, using GraphQL schema language
const typeDefs = gql`
  type Query {
    hello: String
  }
`;

// Provide resolver functions for your schema fields
const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    hello: () => 'Hello world!',
  },
};

const schema = makeExecutableSchema({
  typeDefs,
  resolvers,
})

async function startApolloServer() {

  const server = new ApolloServer({ schema });
  await server.start();

  const app = express();
  server.applyMiddleware({ app });

  await new Promise(resolve => app.listen({ port: 4000 }, resolve));
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`);
  return { server, app };
}

startApolloServer()

const query = `
  query {
    hello
  }
`

const document = parse(query)

const res = execute({
  schema,
  document,
})

console.log('res no request:', res)

if you run it, install apollo-server-express and graphql with npm and you are good to go

To execute you can pass all your request logic as well:

    execute({
      schema,
      document,
      rootValue: {},
      contextValue: {
        userInfo,
        dbClient,
      },
      variableValues: body.variables,
    }),

It is highly useful also if you want to test you server. If you need to do subscriptions you can use the subscribe method imported from graphql as well.