How does Weaviate use GraphQL for queries?

Weaviate exposes a GraphQL API alongside REST, letting clients specify exactly which properties and references to fetch in a single query. GraphQL is particularly useful for complex queries that combine vector search, filters, and cross-references, since it returns structured data matching the schema without over-fetching. The GraphQL API supports nearVector, nearText, hybrid, bm25, and filter operations, plus aggregations like counts and averages. Most client libraries wrap GraphQL with typed builders, hiding the string-based query syntax.