Learning Environment

The recommended way to get started with Dgraph for local development is by using the official Dgraph Docker image.

Start a standalone Dgraph cluster

The dgraph/standalone Docker image has everything needed to run Dgraph locally.

Ensure you have Docker installed, then run the following command to start a local Dgraph instance:

docker run --name dgraph-dev -d  -p 8080:8080 -p 9080:9080 dgraph/standalone:latest

This will create a local Dgraph instance and expose the ports necessary to connect to Dgraph via HTTP and gRPC. Specifically:

• docker run - initiates a new Docker container
• --name dgraph-dev - create a persistent docker imane named dgraph-dev
• -d - uses daemon mode
• -p 8080:8080 - maps port 8080 from the host machine to port 8080 in the Docker container to allow Dgraph HTTP connections
• -p 9080:9080 - maps port 9080 from the host machine to port 9080 in the Docker container to allow Dgraph gRPC connections
• dgraph/standalone:latest - specifies the Docker image to use, this is the official Dgraph image

Check your Dgraph cluster health

Verify your Dgraph instance using the /heatlh REST endpoint.

curl http://localhost:8080/health | jq

The command should return basic cluster information:

[
  {
    "instance": "alpha",
    "address": "localhost:7080",
    "status": "healthy",
    "group": "1",
    "version": "v24.1.5",
    "uptime": 11,
    "lastEcho": 1761430795,
    "ongoing": [
      "opRollup"
    ],
    "ee_features": [
      "backup_restore",
      "cdc"
    ],
    "max_assigned": 30002
  }
]

Connect Ratel

Ratel is a web-based UI dashboard for interacting with Dgraph using Dgraph’s query language, DQL.

Optionnaly, launch Ratel using the dgraph/ratel docker image :

    docker run --name ratel  -d -p "8000:8000"  dgraph/ratel:latest

Navigate to Ratel at http://localhosr:8000 and enter http://localhost:8080 for the “Dgraph Conn String”. This will allow Ratel to connect to our local Dgraph instance and execute DQL queries.