J1QL Language Specs

Updated May 21, 2021 16:49

The JupiterOne Query Language (aka "J1QL") is a query language for querying data stored by JupiterOne. The execution of a J1QL query will seamlessly query full text search, entity-relationship graph, and any other future data stores as needed. By design, the query language does not intend to make these data store boundaries obvious to query authors.

Language Features

Seamlessly blend full-text search and graph queries
Language keywords are case-insensitive
Inspired by SQL and Cypher and aspires to be as close to natural language as possible
Support for variable placeholders
Support for bidirectional traversal
Return entities, relationships, and/or traversal tree
Support for sorting via ORDER BY clause (currently only applies to the starting entities of traversal)
Support for pagination via SKIP and LIMIT clauses (currently only applies to the starting entities of traversal)
Multi-step graph traversals through relationships via THAT clause
Aliasing of selectors via AS keyword
Pre-traversal filtering using property values via WITH clause
Post-traversal filtering using property values or union comparison via WHERE clause
Support aggregates including COUNT, MIN, MAX, AVG and SUM.

Basic Keywords

FIND is followed by an Entity class or type value.

The value is case sensitive in order to automatically determine if the query needs to search for entities by the class or the type, without requiring authors to specifically call it out.

Entity class is stored in TitleCase while type is stored in snake_case.

A wildcard * can be used to find any entity.

For example:

FIND User is equivalent to FIND * with _class='User'

FIND aws_iam_user is equivalent to FIND * with _type='aws_iam_user'

Note that using the wildcard at the beginning of the query without any pre-traversal filtering -- that is, FIND * THAT ... without WITH (see below) -- may result in long query execution time.

WITH is followed by property name and values to filter entities.

Supported operators include:

= or != for String value, Boolean, Number, or Date comparison.

> or < for Number or Date comparison.

Note:

The property names and values are case sensitive.

String values must be wrapped in either single or double quotes - "value" or 'value'.

Boolean, Number, and Date values must not be wrapped in quotes.

The undefined keyword can be used to filter on the absence of a property. For example: FIND DataStore with encrypted=undefined

If a property name contains special characters (e.g. - or :), you can wrap the property name in []. For example: [tag.special-name]='something'

AND, OR for multiple property comparisons are supported.

For example:

FIND DataStore WITH encrypted = false AND tag.Production = true

FIND user_endpoint WITH platform = 'darwin' OR platform = 'linux'

You can filter multiple property values like this (similar to IN in SQL):

 FIND user_endpoint WITH platform = ('darwin' OR 'linux')

 Find Host WITH tag.Environment = ('A' or 'B' or 'C')

 Find DataStore WITH classification != ('critical' and 'restricted')

Property filters are evaluated according the following order of operations:

Parenthesis first, comparisons (=, >=, <=, !=) after, AND and then OR.

THAT is followed by a Relationship verb.

The verb is the class value of a Relationship -- that is, the edge between two connected entity nodes in the graph. This relationship verb/class value is stored in ALLCAPS, however, it is case insensitive in the query, as the query language will automatically convert it.

The predefined keyword RELATES TO can be used to find any relationship between two nodes. For example:

FIND Service THAT RELATES TO Account

( | ) can be used to select entities or relationships of different class/type.

For example, FIND (Host|Device) WITH ipAddress='10.50.2.17' is equivalent to and much simpler than the following:
FIND * WITH
  (_class='Host' OR _class='Device') AND ipAddress='10.50.2.17'
It is fine to mix entity class and type values together. For example:

FIND (Database|aws_s3_bucket)

It can be used on Relationship verbs as well. For example:

FIND HostAgent THAT (MONITORS|PROTECTS) Host

Or both Entity and Relationships together. For example:

FIND * THAT (ALLOWS|PERMITS) (Internet|Everyone)

Relationship verbs are bidirectional

FIND User THAT HAS Device

and

Find Device THAT HAS User

are both acceptable

AS is used to define an aliased selector.

Defines an aliased selector to be used in the WHERE or RETURN portion of a query. For example:

Without selectors: FIND Firewall THAT ALLOWS *

With selectors: FIND Firewall AS fw THAT ALLOWS * AS n

Selectors can also be defined on a relationship:

FIND Firewall AS fw THAT ALLOWS AS rule * AS n

WHERE is used for post-traversal filtering (requires selector)

From the example above:

FIND Firewall as fw that ALLOWS as rule * as n
  WHERE rule.ingress=true AND
    (rule.fromPort=22 or rule.toPort=22)

RETURN is used to return specific entities, relationships, or properties

By default, the entities and their properties found from the start of the traversal is returned. For example, Find User that IS Person returns all matching User entities and their properties, but not the related Person entities.

To return properties from both the User and Person entities, define a selector for each and use them in the RETURN clause:
FIND User as u that IS Person as p
  RETURN u.username, p.firstName, p.lastName, p.email
If a property name contains special characters (e.g. - or :), you can wrap the property name in []. For example: RETURN p.[special-name]='something'

Wildcard can be used to return all properties. For example:
FIND User as u that IS Person as p
  RETURN u.*, p.*
A side effect of using wildcard to return all properties is that all metadata properties associated with the selected entities are also returned. This may be useful when users desire to perform analysis that involves metadata.

TO is used after a relationship verb, and with the exception of RELATES TO, is considered a 'filler' word that is ignored by the interpreter.

The keyword TO is supported in J1QL so that the query can be read as a natural language question. Although TO can be used in a query, if omitted, the returned result will be the same.

The following are some example relationship verbs where TO could be used:

DEPLOYED TO

CONTRIBUTES TO

CONNECTS TO

ASSIGNED TO

The following queries will return the same result:
FIND User THAT CONTRIBUTES TO CodeRepo
FIND User THAT CONTRIBUTES CodeRepo

REMINDER J1QL keywords are not case sensitive.

String Comparisons

J1QL supports the use of the following operators for string comparisons, in addition to = and !=:

~= : contains
^= : starts with
$= : ends with
!~= : does not contain
!^= : does not start with
!$= : does not end with

These operators only work for string comparisons.

Examples:

Find Person with firstName^='J'

The above query would return all entities of the Person class that have a firstName beginning with the character 'J'.

Find Host with tag.AccountName~='demo'

The above query would return entities of the Host class with any of the following examples of tag.AccountName: xyz_demo, demo_xyz, abc_demo_xyz.

These string evaluations are case-sensitive. So 'Demo' and 'demo' will yield distinct sets of results.

Date Comparisons

The query language supports both relative and static data comparisons on any timestamp property. The timestamp property used for date comparison must be stored as an epoch number in milliseconds.

Relative Date Comparison

Relative date comparison allows filtering based on the current datetime.

For example:

Find DataStore with createdOn > date.now - 1 day

The following units are supported:

hour, hr, hours, hrs
day, days
month, mo, months, mos
year, yr, years, yrs

Static Date Comparison

Static date comparison allows filtering based on a given datetime.

For example:

Find DataStore with createdOn > date(2019-10-30)

The static date must be specified in ISO ISO 8601 format:

date(YYYY)
date(YYYY-MM)
date(YYYY-MM-DD)
date(YYYY-MM-DDThhTZD)
date(YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmTZD)
date(YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD)
date(YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sTZD)

Sorting and Pagination via `ORDER BY`, `SKIP`, and `LIMIT`

ORDER BY is followed by a selector.field to indicate what to sort.

SKIP is followed by a number to indicate how many results to skip.

LIMIT is followed by a number to indicate how many results to return.

In the example below, the query sorts users by their username, and returns the 11th-15th users from the sorted list.

FIND Person WITH manager = undefined as u
  ORDER BY u.username SKIP 10 LIMIT 5

Query returns up to 250 results by default if LIMIT is not set.

Aggregation Functions: `COUNT`, `MIN`, `MAX`, `AVG` and `SUM`

It is useful to be able to perform calculations on data that have been returned from the graph. Being able to perform queries to retrieve a count, min, max or perform other calculations can be quite valuable and gives users more ways to understand their data.

The ability to perform aggregations are exposed as Aggregating Functions. These are functions that can be applied to a given set of data that was requested via the RETURN clause.

The following aggregating functions are supported:

count(selector)
count(selector.field) future development
min(selector.field)
max(selector.field)
avg(selector.field)
sum(selector.field)

The keywords are case insensitive.

A few examples:

find
  bitbucket_team as team
    that relates to
  bitbucket_user as user
return
  team.name, count(user)

find
  bitbucket_team as team
    that relates to
  bitbucket_user as user
return
  count(user), avg(user.age)

See more details and examples below.

Future development:

There are plans to support the following aggregations:

count(*) - for determining the count of all other entities related to a given entity.

De-duplicate results with `UNIQUE` and `RETURN`

Sometimes a query may generate duplicate results. This occurs if there are multiple paths of traversals (i.e. relationships) between the vertices (i.e. entities) referenced in a particular query.

Take the example below:

Find aws_eni with publicIpAddress != undefined as nic
  that relates to aws_instance
  that relates to aws_security_group as sg that allows Internet
where nic.securityGroupIds = sg.groupId

This query attempts to find network interfaces that are associated with a security group that allows public facing AWS EC2 instances. In this case, there could be multiple security group rules allowing access to/from the Internet, which may result in duplicate data in the query result because each individual traversal is a successful match to the query.

You can use a combination of UNIQUE and RETURN keywords to filter out the duplicates. The query above can be modified as:

Find UNIQUE aws_eni with publicIpAddress != undefined as nic
  that relates to aws_instance
  that relates to aws_security_group as sg that allows Internet
where
  nic.securityGroupIds = sg.groupId
RETURN
  nic.id, nic.subnetId, nic.attachmentId,
  nic.active, nic.privateIp, nic.publicIp,
  nic.vpcId, nic.securityGroupIds, nic.securityGroupNames,
  nic.tag.AccountName, nic.webLink

Limitation: UNIQUE keyword must be used together with RETURN.

Math Operations

J1QL supports basic math operations on the return values.

Supported operations include +, -, /, * and parenthesis
It will evaluate with normal order of operations:

parenthesis -> multiplication or division -> addition or subtraction

The operation only works against number values. It will not work against strings or strings that represent numbers:

'1' will not work, has to be 1

Example query:

Find (aws_db_cluster_snapshot|aws_db_snapshot) as snapshot
Return
  snapshot.displayName,
  snapshot.allocatedStorage * 0.02 as Cost

This can be combined with aggregation functions. For example:

Find (aws_db_cluster_snapshot|aws_db_snapshot) as snapshot
Return
  snapshot.tag.AccountName as Account,
  sum(snapshot.allocatedStorage) * 0.02 as EstimatedCost

Optional traversals (Beta)

This is a beta feature and the syntax for describing optional traversals may change in the future to help improve clarity. Any changes made to the language will be backwards compatible.

In situations where it is useful to optionally find related entities and include them in the results, J1QL allows for portions of a query to be wrapped with a ( and )? to mark that section of the query as an optional traversal. This allows for related entities from a graph traversal to be combined and for additional constraints to be applied to the set of entities.

Example query:

Find User (that IS Person)?

In the above example, we search for User entities and optionally traverse an IS relationship to a Person entity. If the relationship exists, the related Person entities are added to the list of results.

Relationships can still be chained within an optional traversal. The query below will return a list of Device entities owned by a Person that is a User and User entities that do not have the indirect relationship to the Device.

Find User (that IS Person that OWNS Device)?

Relationships that come after an optional traversal are processed on the combined results. This query searches for Users or UserGroups that directly assigned an AccessPolicy granting admin permissions to certain resources, or via an AccessRole assigned to the User/UserGroup.

Find (User | UserGroup)
  (that assigned AccessRole)?
  that assigned AccessPolicy
  that allows as permission *
where permission.admin=true
return TREE

Optional traversals can also be chained. The combined results from each previous optional traversal will be used in the next optional traversal.

The below query will find User entities, Person entities that have an IS relationship to the User and Device entites that are owned by Person and User entities from the previous optional traversal.

Find User
  (that is Person)?
  (that owns Device)?
Return User, Person, Device

The optional traversals can also be aliased. This allows the union set of entities to be used when returning results and when applying constraints.

Find User
  (that is Person)? as userOrPerson
  that owns Device
Where userOrPerson.email = 'test@jupiterone.com'
Return userOrPerson, Device

Traversals performed within the ( and )? function as normal graph traversals, so WITH filters can still be applied to assist with narrowing results.

Find User with name = 'test'
  (that is Person with email = 'test@jupiterone.com')? as userOrPerson
  that owns Device
return userOrPerson, Device

Examples

More example queries are shown below.

These examples, and same with all packaged queries provided in the JupiterOne web apps, are constructed in a way to de-emphasize the query keywords (they are case insensitive) but rather to highlight the relationships -- the operational context and significance of each query.

Simple Examples

Find any entity that is unencrypted

Find * with encrypted = false

Find all entities of class DataStore that are unencrypted

Find DataStore with encrypted = false

Find all entities of type awsebsvolume that are unencrypted

Find aws_ebs_volume with encrypted = false

Query with relationships

Return just the Firewall entities that protects public-facing hosts

Find Firewall that PROTECTS Host with public = true

Return Firewall and Host entities that matched query

Find Firewall as f that PROTECTS Host with public = true as h RETURN f, h

Return all the entities and relationships that were traversed as a tree

Find Firewall that PROTECTS Host with public = true RETURN tree

Full-text search

Find any and all entities with "127.0.0.1" in some property value

Find "127.0.0.1"

The FIND keyword is optional

"127.0.0.1"

Find all hosts that have "127.0.0.1" in some property value

Find "127.0.0.1" with _class='Host'

Negating relationships

It's useful to know if entities do not have a relationship with another entity. To achieve this, relationships can be negated by prefixing a relationship with an exclamation point: !.

Find User that !IS Person

This also applies to any relationships

Find User that !RELATES TO Person

This finds EBS volumes that are not in use. The query finds relationships regardless of the edge direction, therefore the !USES in the below query translates more directly as "is not used by".

Find aws_ebs_volume that !USES aws_instance

It is important to note that the above query returns aws_ebs_volume entities. If the query were constructed the other way around --

Find aws_instance that !USES aws_ebs_volume

-- it would return a list of aws_instances, if it does not have an EBS volume attached.

More complex queries

Find critical data stored outside of production environments.

This assumes you have the appropriate tags (Classification and Production) on your entities.

Find DataStore with tag.Classification='critical'
  that HAS * with tag.Production='false'

Find all users and their devices without the required endpoint protection agent installed:

Find Person that has Device that !protects HostAgent

Find incorrectly tagged resources in AWS:

Find * as r
  that RELATES TO Service
  that RELATES TO aws_account
  where r.tag.AccountName != r.tag.Environment

If your users sign on to AWS via single sign on, you can find out who has access to those AWS accounts via SSO:

Find User as U
  that ASSIGNED Application as App
  that CONNECTS aws_account as AWS
  RETURN
    U.displayName as User,
    App.tag.AccountName as IdP,
    App.displayName as ssoApplication,
    App.signOnMode as signOnMode,
    AWS.name as awsAccount

Using metadata

Filtering on metadata can often be useful in performing security analysis. The example below is used to find network or host entities that did not get ingested by an integration instance. In other words, these are entities that are likely "external" or "foreign" to the environment.

Find (Network|Host) with _IntegrationInstanceId = undefined

The following example finds all brand new code repos created within the last 48 hours:

Find CodeRepo with _beginOn > date.now-24hr and _version=1

For more details on metadata properties, see the JupiterOne Data Model documentation.

Advanced Notes and Use Cases

How aggregations are applied

There are three different ways for aggregations to be applied

on the customer's subgraph (determined by the traversal that is run)
on a portion of the customer's subgraph relative to a set of entities (groupings)
on data for a single entity

The way aggregations happen are determined by what is requested via the query language's return clause.

Aggregations relative to a subgraph

If all selectors are aggregations, then all aggregations will be scoped to the entire traversal that the user has requested and not tied to individual entities.

Ex. return count(acct), count(user):

Find Account as acct that has User as user
return count(acct), count(user)

Aggregations relative to a grouping by entity attribute

If selectors are provided that do not use an aggregation function, they will be used as a grouping key. This key will be used to apply the aggregations relative to the data chosen.

Ex. return acct._type, count(user):

Find Account as acct that has User as user
return acct._type, count(user)

Aggregations relative to a grouping by multiple attributes

If multiple attributes of a selector are included the return function, the last one before the aggregation will be used as the grouping key.

Ex. return acct._type, acct.displayName, count(user):

Find Account as acct that has User as user
return acct._type, acct.displayName, count(user)

Aggregations Examples

The Simple Case

For example, with the following query,

find
  bitbucket_team as team
    that relates to
  bitbucket_user as user
return
  team.name, count(user)

the result will be:

{
  "type": "table",
  "data": [
    { "team.name": "team1", "count(user)": 25 },
    { "team.name": "team2", "count(user)": 5 }
  ]
}

In this case, the team.name acts as the key that groups aggregations together. So count(user) finds the count of users relative to each team.

Multiple grouping keys

When there are return selectors that are not aggregating functions, the aggregating functions will be performed relative to the identifier that it is closer to in the traversal.

Example:

find
  bitbucket_project as project
    that relates to
  bitbucket_team as team
    that relates to
  bitbucket_user as user
return
  project.name, team.name, count(user)

The count(user) aggregation will be performed relative to the team, because the team traversal is closer to the user traversal in the query.

Example result:

{
  "type": "table",
  "data": [
    { "project.name": "JupiterOne", "team.name": "team1", "count(user)": 25 },
    { "project.name": "JupiterOne", "team.name": "team2", "count(user)": 5 },
    { "project.name": "Windbreaker", "team.name": "team2", "count(user)": 5 }
  ]
}

If the return statement is changed to this:

return
  project.name, count(user)

The count(user) aggregation will be performed relative to the project.

Example result:

{
  "type": "table",
  "data": [
    { "project.name": "JupiterOne", "count(user)": 50 },
    { "project.name": "Windbreaker", "count(user)": 5 }
  ]
}

Examples relative to a single entity

Future development:

If a selector is specified and an aggregating function is applied to that selector's source identifier in some way, aggregations will happen locally to the element.

Example:

find
  bitbucket_project as project
    that relates to
  bitbucket_team as team
    that relates to
  bitbucket_user as user
return
  project.name, count(project.aliases), team.name, count(user)

Example result:

{
  "type": "table",
  "data": [
    {
      "project.name": "JupiterOne",
      "count(project.aliases)": 1,
      "team.name": "team1",
      "count(user)": 25
    },
    {
      "project.name": "JupiterOne",
      "count(project.aliases)": 1,
      "team.name": "team2",
      "count(user)": 5
    },
    {
      "project.name": "Windbreaker",
      "count(project.aliases)": 5,
      "team.name": "team2",
      "count(user)": 5
    }
  ]
}

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Language Features

Basic Keywords

String Comparisons

Date Comparisons

Relative Date Comparison

Static Date Comparison

Sorting and Pagination via ORDER BY, SKIP, and LIMIT

Aggregation Functions: COUNT, MIN, MAX, AVG and SUM

De-duplicate results with UNIQUE and RETURN

Math Operations

Optional traversals (Beta)

Examples

Simple Examples

Query with relationships

Full-text search

Negating relationships

More complex queries

Using metadata

Advanced Notes and Use Cases

How aggregations are applied

Aggregations relative to a subgraph

Aggregations relative to a grouping by entity attribute

Aggregations relative to a grouping by multiple attributes

Aggregations Examples

The Simple Case

Multiple grouping keys

Examples relative to a single entity

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Sorting and Pagination via `ORDER BY`, `SKIP`, and `LIMIT`

Aggregation Functions: `COUNT`, `MIN`, `MAX`, `AVG` and `SUM`

De-duplicate results with `UNIQUE` and `RETURN`