How to return partial responses in Absinthe?

I believe this fixes the problem in Absinthe, but I’m not sure why was the result nulled out when there were errors in the response.

diff --git a/lib/absinthe/phase/document/execution/resolution.ex b/lib/absinthe/phase/document/execution/resolution.ex
index f5b01e5c..8b97cb35 100644
--- a/lib/absinthe/phase/document/execution/resolution.ex
+++ b/lib/absinthe/phase/document/execution/resolution.ex
@@ -269,13 +269,6 @@ defmodule Absinthe.Phase.Document.Execution.Resolution do

     bp_field = put_in(bp_field.schema_node.type, full_type)

-    # if there are any errors, the value is always nil
-    value =
-      case errors do
-        [] -> value
-        _ -> nil
-      end
-
     errors = maybe_add_non_null_error(errors, value, full_type)

     value
diff --git a/lib/absinthe/phase/document/result.ex b/lib/absinthe/phase/document/result.ex
index 651555b7..f07abefc 100644
--- a/lib/absinthe/phase/document/result.ex
+++ b/lib/absinthe/phase/document/result.ex
@@ -42,7 +42,18 @@ defmodule Absinthe.Phase.Document.Result do
     %{errors: errors}
   end

-  defp data(%{errors: [_ | _] = field_errors}, errors), do: {nil, field_errors ++ errors}
+  defp data(%{errors: [_ | _] = field_errors} = input, errors) do
+    {value, more_errors} =
+      if input.value != nil do
+        input
+        |> Map.put(:errors, [])
+        |> data(errors)
+      else
+        {nil, []}
+      end
+
+    {value, field_errors ++ errors ++ more_errors}
+  end

   # Leaf
   defp data(%{value: nil}, errors), do: {nil, errors}

It has been a while since I reviewed the spec. For a long time this was not allowed. Can you provide a link to the updated language?

The relevant section starts here: GraphQL

… If the data entry in the response is present (including if it is the value null), the errors entry in the response may contain any field errors that were raised during execution. …

Here’s an example that shows both data and errors: GraphQL

Hi @sandorbedo this is a common misreading of the spec. This is talking about the overall response shape, not the resolution of any specific field. Absinthe absolutely lets you do the following:

{
  fieldwithNoError
  fieldWithError
}

fieldwithNoError will return a result even if fieldWithError returns an error. What you’re asking about is for an individual field to return both data and errors. That’s governed by this section of the spec: Handling Field Errors which unambiguously states:

If a field error is raised while resolving a field, it is handled as though the field returned null,
and the error must be added to the “errors” list in the response.

Absinthe is compliant here.

EDIT: A quick check of the 2025 draft shows that this remains unchanged in the latest draft too: GraphQL

I think the problem is that you interpret “field” as something that has its own resolver, but that field can be part of any object. The object holding the fieldWithError field has a resolver, but the fieldWithError field itself does not necessarily have one.

How should one create a response that looks like this below? (the example is from the GraphQL spec)

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "Name for character with ID 1002 could not be fetched.",
      "locations": [{ "line": 6, "column": 7 }],
      "path": ["hero", "heroFriends", 1, "name"]
    }
  ],
  "data": {
    "hero": {
      "name": "R2-D2",
      "heroFriends": [
        {
          "id": "1000",
          "name": "Luke Skywalker"
        },
        {
          "id": "1002",
          "name": null
        },
        {
          "id": "1003",
          "name": "Leia Organa"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

The name field does not have it’s own resolver in Absinthe, but there is a hero query that returns an object with a hero_friends field, that is a list of friends. Friends have ids and names, but for some reason we were unable to resolve the name of a certain friend. So, in the resolver of the hero query we should be able to do something like this:

  def ...
    ...

    response = %{
      name: "R2-D2", hero_friends: [
        %{id: "1000", name: "Luke Skywalker"},
        %{id: "1002"},  # no name here or ir could be  `name: nil`
        %{id: "1003", name: "Leia Organa"}
      ]
    }

    {:ok, response, errors: ["Name for character with ID 1002 could not be fetched."]}
  end

Even if the above errors: ... syntax would work - which is not the case, this is just an imaginary syntax - the problem is that Absinthe would still return "hero": null because of the current implementation. If we can’t return something like the JSON example above, I don’t understand how can Absinthe be compliant with the spec.

To answer your last question first:

You absolutely can:

object :hero do
  field :id, :id
  field :name, :string, resolve: &name_or_error/3
end

defp name_or_error(parent, _, _) do
  case Map.fetch(parent, :name) do
    {:ok, name} -> {:ok, name}
    :error ->  {:error, "Name for character with ID #{parent.id} could not be fetched."}
  end
end

It’s worth pointing out as well that in your example what is the path of the error? It’s "path": ["hero", "heroFriends", 1, "name"]. This means that the error was raised while resolving this field. If it was raised from the heroFriends field you would see the path simply be ["hero", "heroFriends"].

This is not correct. Every field has a resolver. Every field is “resolved”. Objects do not have resolvers at all, only fields do. More to the point, the spec is talking about the “process” of resolving a field, which isn’t implementation specific. See GraphQL. Every field goes through this execution and resolution process recursively.