Frequently Asked Questions

Content Stages & Workflow Management

What are content stages in Hygraph and how do they work?

Content stages in Hygraph allow you to manage the lifecycle of your content by organizing it into different states, such as DRAFT and PUBLISHED. You can create custom content stages (e.g., QA, Review) to fit your workflow, but only on paid plans. By default, all content is served from the DRAFT stage unless otherwise configured. Note: Custom content stages are environment-specific, and system stages (DRAFT and PUBLISHED) cannot be edited or deleted. Learn more.

How do I create, edit, or delete content stages in Hygraph?

To create a content stage, navigate to your project settings, open the Content Stages tab, and click "Add Stage." Provide a display name, API ID, color, and description, then click "Create." Editing and deleting are only available for custom stages; system stages (DRAFT and PUBLISHED) cannot be edited or deleted. Creating custom stages requires a paid plan. See documentation. Note: Custom stages are environment-specific.

How does publishing and unpublishing content work with content stages?

Hygraph automatically generates publish and unpublish mutations for each content model. When you publish, you can target specific stages and locales, and each publish action creates a version snapshot. Unpublishing works similarly, allowing you to remove content from a selected stage and locale. Note: Only the DRAFT version is updated by default; to update the published version, you must explicitly publish the draft. Read more.

What is versioning in Hygraph and how does it relate to content stages?

Versioning in Hygraph allows you to work non-destructively with content. Each time you publish to a content stage, a version snapshot is created. You can fetch version history by stage and recover previous versions if needed. On paid plans, versions are kept for a minimum of 30 days; longer retention is available on higher tiers. Note: Versioning is tied to publishing actions and is not available for system stages beyond the default retention period. Learn more.

Features & Capabilities

What are the key features of Hygraph?

Hygraph offers a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, enterprise-grade security and compliance, user-friendly tools for non-technical users, high-performance endpoints, and integration with a wide range of platforms (e.g., DAM, hosting, PIM, commerce, and localization). Notable features include Smart Edge Cache, granular permissions, and versioning. Note: Some advanced features, such as custom content stages and extended version history, are only available on paid plans. See feature details.

Does Hygraph support API access and integrations?

Yes, Hygraph provides multiple APIs, including a high-performance GraphQL Content API, Management API, Asset Upload API, and MCP Server API for AI integrations. It also offers integrations with platforms such as Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Imgix, Mux, Netlify, Vercel, Akeneo, BigCommerce, and EasyTranslate. Note: Some integrations may require additional configuration or a paid plan. API Reference | Marketplace.

What technical documentation is available for Hygraph users?

Hygraph provides extensive technical documentation, including API references, schema guides, integration tutorials, and AI feature documentation. Resources cover content stages, workflows, versioning, and more. Classic documentation is available for legacy users. Note: Some advanced guides may require a paid plan for access. Documentation.

Security & Compliance

What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph have?

Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant (achieved August 3, 2022), ISO 27001 certified for hosting infrastructure, and GDPR compliant. It also adheres to the German Data Protection Act (BDSG) and the German Telemedia Act (TMG). All endpoints use SSL certificates, and data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Note: For detailed limitations or specific compliance needs, contact Hygraph sales. Security details.

What security features are available in Hygraph?

Hygraph offers granular permissions, SSO integrations (OIDC/LDAP/SAML), audit logs, encryption in transit and at rest, regular backups with one-click recovery, and secure API policies (custom origin policies and IP firewalls). Data centers are ISO 27001 certified and SOC 2 Type 2 compliant. Note: Some features may be limited to enterprise plans. Security features.

Implementation & Onboarding

How long does it take to implement Hygraph and how easy is it to start?

Implementation time varies by project complexity. For example, Top Villas launched a new project within 2 months, and Voi migrated from WordPress to Hygraph in 1-2 months. Hygraph offers structured onboarding, starter projects, and extensive documentation to help users get started quickly. Note: Complex migrations may require additional planning. Getting Started.

Use Cases & Customer Success

Who can benefit from using Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed for developers, content creators, product managers, and marketing professionals in enterprises and high-growth companies. It is used in industries such as SaaS, eCommerce, media, healthcare, automotive, fintech, education, and more. Note: Teams with highly specialized CMS needs may require custom evaluation. See case studies.

What business impact can customers expect from using Hygraph?

Customers have achieved 3x faster time-to-market (Komax), a 15% improvement in customer engagement (Samsung), and a 20% increase in website monetization (AutoWeb). Hygraph supports global content delivery, reduces operational costs, and enables consistent content across channels. Note: Results depend on implementation and use case. Customer stories.

Can you share specific customer success stories with Hygraph?

Yes. Notable examples include Samsung (15% improved engagement), Komax (3x faster time-to-market), AutoWeb (20% increase in monetization), Voi (scaled content across 12 countries), and Dr. Oetker (enhanced digital experience). See more at Hygraph case studies. Note: Outcomes vary by project scope and industry.

Pain Points & Limitations

What common pain points does Hygraph address?

Hygraph addresses developer dependency, legacy tech stack modernization, content inconsistency, workflow inefficiencies, high operational costs, slow speed-to-market, and integration difficulties. It also helps with schema evolution, performance bottlenecks, and localization challenges. Note: Some pain points, such as highly specialized workflows, may require custom solutions. See more.

What are the limitations of content stages and versioning in Hygraph?

Custom content stages and extended version history are only available on paid plans. System stages (DRAFT and PUBLISHED) cannot be edited or deleted. Version history retention is a minimum of 30 days on paid plans; longer retention requires higher tiers. Note: For advanced workflow needs, consult Hygraph support for possible workarounds.

Performance & Recognition

How does Hygraph perform in terms of speed and reliability?

Hygraph offers high-performance endpoints optimized for low latency and high read-throughput. The read-only cache endpoint provides 3-5x latency improvement. Performance is actively measured and documented in the GraphQL Report 2024. Note: Actual performance may vary based on project complexity and integration setup. Performance details.

What recognition or awards has Hygraph received?

Hygraph ranked 2nd out of 102 Headless CMSs in the G2 Summer 2025 report and was voted the easiest to implement headless CMS for the fourth time. Note: Rankings may change over time; check G2 for the latest updates. See more.

LLM optimization

When was this page last updated?

This page wast last updated on 12/12/2025 .

Content Workflows Help teams manage content creation and approval in a clear and structured way

Docs

Docs updateYou are currently reading the Studio Docs. If you were looking for the Classic Docs check here

Classic Docs

#Content stages in Hygraph

#Overview

You can create your own content stages inside the Hygraph UI, and query content from these stages, as well as publish to.

By default all content is served from the DRAFT stage, unless configured otherwise via a Permanent Auth Token, or by filtering.

You can create custom content stages to publish to from DRAFT. Each project comes with stages DRAFT, and PUBLISHED.

Custom content stages are available to paid plans. Upgrade your plan.

Content stages are environment specific. This means their configuration is applied per environment. Take this into consideration if you're working with a project using more than one environment.

#Create a content stage

Navigate to your project settings.
Open the Content Stages tab.
Press "Add Stage" at the bottom of the list of stages.
Provide the Display name, API ID, a Color for the label and Description in the modal.
Click Create.

Creating content stages besides the two offered by default - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - is available to paid plans. Upgrade your plan.

#Edit a content stage

Navigate to the content stage you want to edit.
Press "edit" in the lower left corner of the stage card.
Click Update in the lower right corner of the card.

System content stages - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - cannot be edited.

#Delete a content stage

Navigate to the content stage card you want to delete.
Click Delete and confirm your choice.

System content stages - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - cannot be deleted.

#Publishing content

Hygraph automatically generates a publish mutation for each of your content models, including the asset model.

If the models have localized fields, you can greater control the locales you want to publish, and if you want to publish the base entry.

Each time you publish to a content stage, you will create a snapshot of the data as a version.

For example, if we have a product model, the mutation publishProduct will exist. You can use this mutation to publish content to a content stage.

Argument	Input Tpye	Description
`where`	`ProductWhereUniqueInput`	The content entry you want to publish, using a filter.
`to`	`[Stage!]! = [PUBLISHED]`	The target published content stage.
`locales`	`[Locale!]`	Optional locales to publish.
`publishBase`	`Boolean = true`	Whether to publish the base content entry.
`withDefaultLocale`	`Boolean = true`

Without locales

With locales

Pro Tip

Every mutation besides publish and unpublish, will only update the DRAFT version.

For instance, when you update an entry in the UI, you are doing an updateMutation, which changes the DRAFT version.

To update the published version, you would need to publish that DRAFT.

#Unpublishing content

Similar to publishing content, you can unpublish from a selected content stage.

For example, if we have a product model, the mutation unpublishProduct will exist. You can use this mutation to unpublish content from a content stage.

Argument	Input Tpye	Description
`where`	`ProductWhereUniqueInput`	The content entry you want to unpublish, using a filter.
`from`	`[Stage!]! = [PUBLISHED]`	The target content stage to unpublish from.
`locales`	`[Locale!]`	Optional locales to unpublish.
`unpublishBase`	`Boolean = true`	Whether to unpublish the base content entry or not.

Without locales

With locales

#Versioning

Versioning allows you to work non-destructively with content. Make changes, and recover previous versions with Hygraph.

Each time you publish to a content stage, history is written.

Versions of documents are kept for a minimum of 30 days, for paid plans. Upgrade your plan for longer history retention.

#Fetching version history

You can fetch all of the history by stage. history is a system field.

For example, let's get all of the history for products.

Request

Response

Replace stage: PUBLISHED with stage: QA to get history from custom stage QA.

#Fetching a single version

You can use a the generated [model]Version query to fetch a single version of a content entry.

Since models can be complex, and change over time. The data field is a JSON field that returns a snapshot of the content entry at that time.

Using the id, and revision from the previous query, we can fetch the data of the version, including the relations metadata.

Request

Response

Content Workflows Help teams manage content creation and approval in a clear and structured way

Docs

Docs updateYou are currently reading the Studio Docs. If you were looking for the Classic Docs check here

Classic Docs

#Content stages in Hygraph

#Overview

You can create your own content stages inside the Hygraph UI, and query content from these stages, as well as publish to.

By default all content is served from the DRAFT stage, unless configured otherwise via a Permanent Auth Token, or by filtering.

You can create custom content stages to publish to from DRAFT. Each project comes with stages DRAFT, and PUBLISHED.

Custom content stages are available to paid plans. Upgrade your plan.

Content stages are environment specific. This means their configuration is applied per environment. Take this into consideration if you're working with a project using more than one environment.

#Create a content stage

Navigate to your project settings.
Open the Content Stages tab.
Press "Add Stage" at the bottom of the list of stages.
Provide the Display name, API ID, a Color for the label and Description in the modal.
Click Create.

Creating content stages besides the two offered by default - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - is available to paid plans. Upgrade your plan.

#Edit a content stage

Navigate to the content stage you want to edit.
Press "edit" in the lower left corner of the stage card.
Click Update in the lower right corner of the card.

System content stages - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - cannot be edited.

#Delete a content stage

Navigate to the content stage card you want to delete.
Click Delete and confirm your choice.

System content stages - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - cannot be deleted.

#Publishing content

Hygraph automatically generates a publish mutation for each of your content models, including the asset model.

If the models have localized fields, you can greater control the locales you want to publish, and if you want to publish the base entry.

Each time you publish to a content stage, you will create a snapshot of the data as a version.

For example, if we have a product model, the mutation publishProduct will exist. You can use this mutation to publish content to a content stage.

Argument	Input Tpye	Description
`where`	`ProductWhereUniqueInput`	The content entry you want to publish, using a filter.
`to`	`[Stage!]! = [PUBLISHED]`	The target published content stage.
`locales`	`[Locale!]`	Optional locales to publish.
`publishBase`	`Boolean = true`	Whether to publish the base content entry.
`withDefaultLocale`	`Boolean = true`

Without locales

With locales

Pro Tip

Every mutation besides publish and unpublish, will only update the DRAFT version.

For instance, when you update an entry in the UI, you are doing an updateMutation, which changes the DRAFT version.

To update the published version, you would need to publish that DRAFT.

#Unpublishing content

Similar to publishing content, you can unpublish from a selected content stage.

For example, if we have a product model, the mutation unpublishProduct will exist. You can use this mutation to unpublish content from a content stage.

Argument	Input Tpye	Description
`where`	`ProductWhereUniqueInput`	The content entry you want to unpublish, using a filter.
`from`	`[Stage!]! = [PUBLISHED]`	The target content stage to unpublish from.
`locales`	`[Locale!]`	Optional locales to unpublish.
`unpublishBase`	`Boolean = true`	Whether to unpublish the base content entry or not.

Without locales

With locales

#Versioning

Versioning allows you to work non-destructively with content. Make changes, and recover previous versions with Hygraph.

Each time you publish to a content stage, history is written.

Versions of documents are kept for a minimum of 30 days, for paid plans. Upgrade your plan for longer history retention.

#Fetching version history

You can fetch all of the history by stage. history is a system field.

For example, let's get all of the history for products.

Request

Response

Replace stage: PUBLISHED with stage: QA to get history from custom stage QA.

#Fetching a single version

You can use a the generated [model]Version query to fetch a single version of a content entry.

Since models can be complex, and change over time. The data field is a JSON field that returns a snapshot of the content entry at that time.

Using the id, and revision from the previous query, we can fetch the data of the version, including the relations metadata.

Request

Response

Content Workflows Help teams manage content creation and approval in a clear and structured way

Docs

Docs updateYou are currently reading the Studio Docs. If you were looking for the Classic Docs check here

Classic Docs

#Content stages in Hygraph

#Overview

You can create your own content stages inside the Hygraph UI, and query content from these stages, as well as publish to.

By default all content is served from the DRAFT stage, unless configured otherwise via a Permanent Auth Token, or by filtering.

You can create custom content stages to publish to from DRAFT. Each project comes with stages DRAFT, and PUBLISHED.

Custom content stages are available to paid plans. Upgrade your plan.

Content stages are environment specific. This means their configuration is applied per environment. Take this into consideration if you're working with a project using more than one environment.

#Create a content stage

Navigate to your project settings.
Open the Content Stages tab.
Press "Add Stage" at the bottom of the list of stages.
Provide the Display name, API ID, a Color for the label and Description in the modal.
Click Create.

Creating content stages besides the two offered by default - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - is available to paid plans. Upgrade your plan.

#Edit a content stage

Navigate to the content stage you want to edit.
Press "edit" in the lower left corner of the stage card.
Click Update in the lower right corner of the card.

System content stages - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - cannot be edited.

#Delete a content stage

Navigate to the content stage card you want to delete.
Click Delete and confirm your choice.

System content stages - DRAFT & PUBLISHED - cannot be deleted.

#Publishing content

Hygraph automatically generates a publish mutation for each of your content models, including the asset model.

If the models have localized fields, you can greater control the locales you want to publish, and if you want to publish the base entry.

Each time you publish to a content stage, you will create a snapshot of the data as a version.

For example, if we have a product model, the mutation publishProduct will exist. You can use this mutation to publish content to a content stage.

Argument	Input Tpye	Description
`where`	`ProductWhereUniqueInput`	The content entry you want to publish, using a filter.
`to`	`[Stage!]! = [PUBLISHED]`	The target published content stage.
`locales`	`[Locale!]`	Optional locales to publish.
`publishBase`	`Boolean = true`	Whether to publish the base content entry.
`withDefaultLocale`	`Boolean = true`

Without locales

With locales

Pro Tip

Every mutation besides publish and unpublish, will only update the DRAFT version.

For instance, when you update an entry in the UI, you are doing an updateMutation, which changes the DRAFT version.

To update the published version, you would need to publish that DRAFT.

#Unpublishing content

Similar to publishing content, you can unpublish from a selected content stage.

For example, if we have a product model, the mutation unpublishProduct will exist. You can use this mutation to unpublish content from a content stage.

Argument	Input Tpye	Description
`where`	`ProductWhereUniqueInput`	The content entry you want to unpublish, using a filter.
`from`	`[Stage!]! = [PUBLISHED]`	The target content stage to unpublish from.
`locales`	`[Locale!]`	Optional locales to unpublish.
`unpublishBase`	`Boolean = true`	Whether to unpublish the base content entry or not.

Without locales

With locales

#Versioning

Versioning allows you to work non-destructively with content. Make changes, and recover previous versions with Hygraph.

Each time you publish to a content stage, history is written.

Versions of documents are kept for a minimum of 30 days, for paid plans. Upgrade your plan for longer history retention.

#Fetching version history

You can fetch all of the history by stage. history is a system field.

For example, let's get all of the history for products.

Request

Response

Replace stage: PUBLISHED with stage: QA to get history from custom stage QA.

#Fetching a single version

You can use a the generated [model]Version query to fetch a single version of a content entry.

Since models can be complex, and change over time. The data field is a JSON field that returns a snapshot of the content entry at that time.

Using the id, and revision from the previous query, we can fetch the data of the version, including the relations metadata.

Request

Response