How to implement Offset-Based Pagination in GraphQL?

Q: How to implement Offset-Based Pagination in GraphQL?

type Query { posts(limit: Int, offset: Int): [Post] } type Post { id: ID! title: String! content: String! } const resolvers = { Query: { posts: async (_, { limit, offset }, context) => { return await context.db.collection("posts") .find() .skip(offset) // Skip the specified number of records .limit(limit) // Fetch only the specified number of records .toArray(); }, }, }; query { posts(limit: 10, offset: 20) { id title } }

Difficulty: 5/10

offset pagination, GraphQL resolvers, performance

Pagination in GraphQL allows you to efficiently manage large datasets by retrieving small chunks of data rather than fetching everything at once. There are two common approaches to implement pagination in GraphQL: Offset-Based Pagination and Cursor-Based Pagination.

Schema Definition:

Resolver:

Query Example:

Scenario Questions

0-2 years experience

1We have a simple GraphQL query `posts(page: Int, pageSize: Int): [Post]`. How would you implement offset‑based pagination in the resolver?
2If a client asks for `page: -1` or `pageSize: 0`, what should your resolver return and why?

2-5 years experience

1Your team added offset pagination to a product list, but after deployment some users see duplicate items when navigating quickly. What could cause this and how would you fix it?

Follow-up Questions