Populating with the Query Engine API

Caution

In most cases you should not use the Query Engine API and rather use the Document Service API.

Only use the Query Engine API if you exactly know what you are doing, for instance if you want to use a lower-level API that directly interacts with unique rows of the database.

Please keep in mind that the Query Engine API is not aware of the most advanced Strapi 5 features like Draft & Publish, Internationalization, Content History, and possibly more.

Relations and components have a unified API for populating them.

To populate all the root level relations, use populate: true:

strapi.db.query('api::article.article').findMany({
  populate: true,
});

Select which data to populate by passing an array of attribute names:

strapi.db.query('api::article.article').findMany({
  populate: ['componentA', 'relationA'],
});

An object can be passed for more advanced usage:

strapi.db.query('api::article.article').findMany({
  populate: {
    componentB: true,
    dynamiczoneA: true,
    relation: someLogic || true,
  },
});

Complex populating can also be achieved by applying where filters and select or populate nested relations:

strapi.db.query('api::article.article').findMany({
  populate: {
    relationA: {
      where: {
        name: {
          $contains: 'Strapi',
        },
      },
    },

    repeatableComponent: {
      select: ['someAttributeName'],
      orderBy: ['someAttributeName'],
      populate: {
        componentRelationA: true,
      },
    },

    dynamiczoneA: true,
  },
});

When dealing with polymorphic data structures (dynamic zones, polymorphic relations, etc...), it is possible to use populate fragments to have a better granularity on the populate strategy.

strapi.db.query('api::article.article').findMany('api::article.article', {
  populate: {
    dynamicZone: {
      on: {
        'components.foo': {
          select: ['title'],
          where: { title: { $contains: 'strapi' } },
        },
        'components.bar': {
          select: ['name'],
        },
      },
    },

    morphAuthor: {
      on: {
        'plugin::users-permissions.user': {
          select: ['username'],
        },
        'api::author.author': {
          select: ['name'],
        },
      },
    },
  },
});