The HotChocolate.AspNetCore.CommandLine package extends the IHostBuilder interface with a command-line interface for managing GraphQL schemas. This extension lets you export schemas directly from the command line, which is useful for CI/CD pipelines and schema registry workflows.

Setup

Here is an example of using the HotChocolate.AspNetCore.CommandLine package with a minimal API:

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.AddGraphQL().AddQueryType<Query>();

var app = builder.Build();

app.MapGraphQL();

return await app.RunWithGraphQLCommandsAsync(args);

In v16, RunWithGraphQLCommandsAsync returns a Task<int> (and the synchronous RunWithGraphQLCommands returns int). Return this exit code from your Program.cs so that command failures signal an error to shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, and other tools.

Commands

Schema Export Command

The schema export command exports the GraphQL schema. By default, the schema is printed to the console. You can specify an output file using the --output option.

dotnet run -- schema export --output schema.graphql

Options

• --output: The path to the file where the schema is exported. If no output path is specified, the schema prints to the console.
• --schema-name: The name of the schema to export. If no schema name is specified, the default schema is exported.
• --semantic-non-null: Rewrites the exported schema to strip non-null wrappers from output fields and apply the @semanticNonNull directive instead. Useful for clients that still rely on @semanticNonNull annotations after the experimental support was removed in v16.

Next Steps

• Warmup for details on startup behavior and schema initialization.
• Migrate from v15 to v16 for the full list of changes to RunWithGraphQLCommandsAsync.