How can we specifiy the fields to return in read action?

[MartinVolerich]

I am writing a simple read action on a resource which I would like to return a single attribute (field) only. I have reviewed the DSL for the read action and cannot spot any way to limit the fields returned in the select query.

What am I missing?
Thanks
Martin

[sezaru]

Select fields in read action

Ash read actions always return structs, so all fields will be present on the structs. But if you want to avoid selecting them you can use prepare build(select: [:foo, :bar]) to limit the selected fields in a given action Copied from Zach’s message in Discord.

[MartinVolerich]

That’s very helpful. I’ve a better understanding (now as a result) of how to think about the prepare dsl

Thanks again
Martin

[zachdaniel]

This can also be accomplished with generic actions. There is a guide on the main hexdocs page describing how they work. They can be used to have actions that return arbitrary values (like a string)