CIP2026-03-18: Temporal Graph Queries — AS OF Clause#584
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ADunfield wants to merge 1 commit intoopencypher:mainfrom
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CIP2026-03-18: Temporal Graph Queries — AS OF Clause#584ADunfield wants to merge 1 commit intoopencypher:mainfrom
ADunfield wants to merge 1 commit intoopencypher:mainfrom
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Proposes FOR VALID_TIME AS OF / AS OF clause for MATCH patterns, enabling point-in-time queries over temporally-annotated relationships without verbose manual IS NULL OR predicate patterns. Aligned with SQL:2011 valid time semantics. Includes EBNF grammar additions, point-in-time predicate specification, six Cypher examples, comparison with SQL/SPARQL/graph systems, benefits, caveats, and a Phase 1 parse-time rewrite rule (no storage layer changes required). Reference implementation (3.1M+ relationships, production-validated): https://github.com/DIGITAL-FABRIC-AI/neo4j-temporal-graph Authored-by: Ashley Dunfield <ashley@digital-fabric.com>
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Summary
This CIP proposes a
FOR VALID_TIME AS OFclause (shorthand:AS OF) for CypherMATCHpatterns, enabling point-in-time queries over relationships annotated with valid time periods.Motivation
Temporal data — ownership changes, organisational structures, regulatory assignments, contract periods — is ubiquitous in graph modelling. Cypher has no native syntax for querying a graph as it existed at a point in time. Today, developers must write manual
IS NULL ORpredicates on every relationship hop, producing verbose, error-prone, and optimiser-opaque queries.A three-hop temporal traversal today requires six predicates. This CIP reduces it to a single
AS OFclause.Proposed syntax
Full EBNF, semantics, six examples, SQL:2011 alignment, and a Phase 1 parse-time rewrite rule (no storage changes required) are in the CIP document.
Reference implementation
A working implementation demonstrating these semantics as Neo4j procedures and user functions, validated on a production graph with 3.1M+ temporally-annotated relationships:
https://github.com/DIGITAL-FABRIC-AI/neo4j-temporal-graph
Prior art
Aligned with SQL:2011
FOR VALID_TIME AS OFsemantics, adapted for Cypher's relationship-centric data model.Author: Ashley Dunfield ashley@digital-fabric.com