using-graph-databases

using-graph-databases is a skill for Claude Code from ancoleman/ai-design-components. It costs 56 tokens per session (3,289 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to graph databases, which store entities and their connections as a central part of the data model. It covers Neo4j, ArangoDB, Amazon Neptune, Cypher queries, and graph modeling.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for social networks, recommendations, knowledge graphs, fraud detection, access-control relationships, dependency chains, and path finding.
Why use it?
It helps when finding paths or patterns across many connected records is more important than ordinary table joins. It also helps decide when a relational database is a better fit.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the backend-data-skills plugin — 6 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it for social networks, recommendations, knowledge graphs, fraud detection, access-control relationships, dependency chains, and path finding.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ancoleman/ai-design-components/using-graph-databases
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add ancoleman/ai-design-components --skill using-graph-databases
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ancoleman/ai-design-components

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install backend-data-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 6 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for using-graph-databases

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ancoleman/ai-design-components/using-graph-databases.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ancoleman/ai-design-components/using-graph-databases)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ancoleman/ai-design-components/using-graph-databases"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ancoleman/ai-design-components/using-graph-databases.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 56 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,289 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00056 $0.03289
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.01644
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00658
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00329

Measured 4d ago against content hash 625fb2bb670c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

using-graph-databases scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 4 executable files (examples/knowledge-graph/hybrid_vector_graph.py, examples/social-graph/python-neo4j/main.py, examples/social-graph/typescript-neo4j/index.ts, …), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/using-graph-databases/SKILL.md · 474 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 474 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Graph Databases

Purpose

This skill guides selection and implementation of graph databases for applications where relationships between entities are first-class citizens. Unlike relational databases that model relationships through foreign keys and joins, graph databases natively represent connections as properties, enabling efficient traversal-heavy queries.

When to Use This Skill

Use graph databases when:

  • Deep relationship traversals (4+ hops): "Friends of friends of friends"
  • Variable/evolving relationships: Schema changes don't break existing queries
  • Path finding: Shortest route, network analysis, dependency chains
  • Pattern matching: Fraud detection, recommendation engines, access control

Do NOT use graph databases when:

  • Fixed schema with shallow joins (2-3 tables) → Use PostgreSQL
  • Primarily aggregations/analytics → Use columnar databases
  • Key-value lookups only → Use Redis/DynamoDB

Quick Decision Framework

DATA CHARACTERISTICS?
├── Fixed schema, shallow joins (≤3 hops)
│   └─ PostgreSQL (relational)
│
├── Already on PostgreSQL + simple graphs
│   └─ Apache AGE (PostgreSQL extension)
│
├── Deep traversals (4+ hops) + general purpose
│   └─ Neo4j (battle-tested, largest ecosystem)
│
├── Multi-model (documents + graph)
│   └─ ArangoDB
│
├── AWS-native, serverless
│   └─ Amazon Neptune
│
└── Real-time streaming, in-memory
    └─ Memgraph

Core Concepts

Property Graph Model

Graph databases store data as:

  • Nodes (vertices): Entities with labels and properties
  • Relationships (edges): Typed connections with properties
  • Properties: Key-value pairs on nodes and relationships
(Person {name: "Alice", age: 28})-[:FRIEND {since: "2020-01-15"}]->(Person {name: "Bob"})

Query Languages

Language Databases Readability Best For
Cypher Neo4j, Memgraph, AGE ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ SQL-like General purpose
Gremlin Neptune, JanusGraph ⭐⭐⭐ Functional Cross-database
AQL ArangoDB ⭐⭐⭐⭐ SQL-like Multi-model
SPARQL Neptune, RDF stores ⭐⭐⭐ W3C standard Semantic web

Read the full file on GitHub · 474 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 474 lines · 56 tokens per session scan A 625fb2bb670c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

using-graph-databases is a skill published in the GitHub repository ancoleman/ai-design-components (519 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 56 tokens to every session and 3,289 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

db-seed

Generate database seed scripts with realistic sample data. Reads Drizzle schemas or SQL migrations, respects foreign key ordering, produces idempotent TypeScript or SQL seed files. Handles D1 batch limits, unique constraints, and domain-appropriate data. Use when populating dev/demo/test databases. Triggers: 'seed…

jezweb/claude-skills · 96 tokens

d1-drizzle-schema

Generate Drizzle ORM schemas for Cloudflare D1 databases with correct D1-specific patterns. Produces schema files, migration commands, type exports, and DATABASESCHEMA.md documentation. Handles D1 quirks: foreign keys always enforced, no native BOOLEAN/DATETIME types, 100 bound parameter limit, JSON stored as TEXT.…

jezweb/claude-skills · 90 tokens

d1-migration

Cloudflare D1 migration workflow: generate with Drizzle, inspect SQL for gotchas, apply to local and remote, fix stuck migrations, handle partial failures. Use when running migrations, fixing migration errors, or setting up D1 schemas.

jezweb/claude-skills · 53 tokens

database-migrator

Migrates databases between providers (Postgres, MySQL, Supabase, PlanetScale, MongoDB). Reads source schema, generates migration scripts, handles data type mapping, foreign keys, indexes, triggers, stored procedures. Validates migration with row counts and checksums. Generates migration-plan.md with step-by-step…

OneWave-AI/claude-skills · 76 tokens

database-schema-designer

Design optimized database schemas for SQL and NoSQL databases including tables, relationships, indexes, and constraints. Creates ERD diagrams, migration scripts, and data modeling best practices. Use when users need database design, schema optimization, or data architecture planning.

OneWave-AI/claude-skills · 54 tokens

grill-task

A requirements-clarification workflow written in Chinese for confirming new tasks and matching requested fields with existing database fields.

BlueprintOS/analysis-to-delivery · 60 tokens