Explore the query execution summary

After all results coming from a query have been processed, the server ends the transaction by returning a summary of execution. It comes as a ResultSummary object, and it contains information among which:

Query counters — What changes the query triggered on the server
Query execution plan — How the database would execute (or executed) the query
Notifications — Extra information raised by the server while running the query
Timing information and query request summary

Retrieve the execution summary

When running queries with Driver.executableQuery(), the execution summary is part of the default return object, retrievable through the .summary() method.

var result = driver.executableQuery("""
    UNWIND ['Alice', 'Bob'] AS name
    MERGE (p:Person {name: name})
    """)
    .withConfig(QueryConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())
    .execute();
var resultSummary = result.summary();

If you are using transaction functions, you can retrieve the query execution summary with the method Result.consume(). Notice that once you ask for the execution summary, the result stream is exhausted. This means that any record which has not yet been processed is discarded.

try (var session = driver.session(SessionConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())) {
    var resultSummary = session.executeWrite(tx -> {
        var result = tx.run("""
        UNWIND ['Alice', 'Bob'] AS name
        MERGE (p:Person {name: name})
        """);
        return result.consume();
    });
}

Query counters

The method ResultSummary.counters() returns counters for the operations that a query triggered (as a SummaryCounters object).

Insert some data and display the query counters

var result = driver.executableQuery("""
    MERGE (p:Person {name: $name})
    MERGE (p)-[:KNOWS]->(:Person {name: $friend})
    """).withParameters(Map.of("name", "Mark", "friend", "Bob"))
    .withConfig(QueryConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())
    .execute();
var queryCounters = result.summary().counters();
System.out.println(queryCounters);

/*
InternalSummaryCounters{nodesCreated=2, nodesDeleted=0, relationshipsCreated=1, relationshipsDeleted=0,
propertiesSet=2, labelsAdded=2, labelsRemoved=0, indexesAdded=0, indexesRemoved=0, constraintsAdded=0,
constraintsRemoved=0, systemUpdates=0}
*/

There are two additional boolean methods which act as meta-counters:

.containsUpdates() — Whether the query triggered any write operation on the database on which it ran
.containsSystemUpdates() — Whether the query updated the system database

Query execution plan

If you prefix a query with EXPLAIN, the server will return the plan it would use to run the query, but will not actually run it. The plan is then available as a Plan object through the method ResultSummary.plan(), and contains the list of Cypher operators that would be used to retrieve the result set. You may use this information to locate potential bottlenecks or room for performance improvements (for example through the creation of indexes).

var result = driver.executableQuery("EXPLAIN MATCH (p {name: $name}) RETURN p")
    .withParameters(Map.of("name", "Alice"))
    .withConfig(QueryConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())
    .execute();
var queryPlan = result.summary().plan().arguments().get("string-representation");
System.out.println(queryPlan);

/*
Planner COST
Runtime PIPELINED
Runtime version 5.0
Batch size 128

+-----------------+----------------+----------------+---------------------+
| Operator        | Details        | Estimated Rows | Pipeline            |
+-----------------+----------------+----------------+---------------------+
| +ProduceResults | p              |              1 |                     |
| |               +----------------+----------------+                     |
| +Filter         | p.name = $name |              1 |                     |
| |               +----------------+----------------+                     |
| +AllNodesScan   | p              |             10 | Fused in Pipeline 0 |
+-----------------+----------------+----------------+---------------------+

Total database accesses: ?
*/

If you instead prefix a query with the keyword PROFILE, the server will return the execution plan it has used to run the query, together with profiler statistics. This includes the list of operators that were used and additional profiling information about each intermediate step. The plan is available as a Plan object through the method ResultSummary.profile(). Notice that the query is also run, so the result object also contains any result records.

var result = driver.executableQuery("PROFILE MATCH (p {name: $name}) RETURN p")
    .withParameters(Map.of("name", "Alice"))
    .withConfig(QueryConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())
    .execute();
var queryPlan = result.summary().profile().arguments().get("string-representation");
System.out.println(queryPlan);

/*
Planner COST
Runtime PIPELINED
Runtime version 5.0
Batch size 128

+-----------------+----------------+----------------+------+---------+----------------+------------------------+-----------+---------------------+
| Operator        | Details        | Estimated Rows | Rows | DB Hits | Memory (Bytes) | Page Cache Hits/Misses | Time (ms) | Pipeline            |
+-----------------+----------------+----------------+------+---------+----------------+------------------------+-----------+---------------------+
| +ProduceResults | p              |              1 |    1 |       3 |                |                        |           |                     |
| |               +----------------+----------------+------+---------+----------------+                        |           |                     |
| +Filter         | p.name = $name |              1 |    1 |       4 |                |                        |           |                     |
| |               +----------------+----------------+------+---------+----------------+                        |           |                     |
| +AllNodesScan   | p              |             10 |    4 |       5 |            120 |                 9160/0 |   108.923 | Fused in Pipeline 0 |
+-----------------+----------------+----------------+------+---------+----------------+------------------------+-----------+---------------------+

Total database accesses: 12, total allocated memory: 184
*/

For more information and examples, see Basic query tuning.

Notifications

After executing a query, the server can return notifications alongside the query result. Notifications contain recommendations for performance improvements, warnings about the usage of deprecated features, and other hints about sub-optimal usage of Neo4j.

For driver version >= 5.25 and server version >= 5.23, two forms of notifications are available (Neo4j status codes and GQL status codes). For earlier versions, only Neo4j status codes are available.
GQL status codes are planned to supersede Neo4j status codes.

Example 1. An unbounded shortest path raises a performance notification

The method ResultSummary.notifications() returns a list of Notification objects.

var result = driver.executableQuery("""
    MATCH p=shortestPath((:Person {name: $start})-[*]->(:Person {name: $end}))
    RETURN p
    """)
    .withParameters(Map.of("start", "Alice", "end", "Bob"))
    .withConfig(QueryConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())
    .execute();
var notifications = result.summary().notifications();
System.out.println(notifications);
/*
[
    code=Neo.ClientNotification.Statement.UnboundedVariableLengthPattern,
    title=The provided pattern is unbounded, consider adding an upper limit to the number of node hops.,
    description=Using shortest path with an unbounded pattern will likely result in long execution times. It is recommended to use an upper limit to the number of node hops in your pattern.,
    severityLevel=InternalNotificationSeverity[type=INFORMATION,
    level=800],
    rawSeverityLevel=INFORMATION,
    category=InternalNotificationCategory[type=PERFORMANCE],
    rawCategory=PERFORMANCE,
    position={offset=21, line=1, column=22}
]
*/

With version >= 5.25, the method ResultSummary.gqlStatusObjects() returns an ordered set of GQL-compliant status objects.

The set can contain both Notification objects and GqlStatusObject objects. The latter encodes the query’s outcome status: 00000 for "success", 02000 for "no data", and 00001 for "omitted result". The set always contains at least one entry, containing the outcome status.

var result = driver.executableQuery("""
    MATCH p=shortestPath((:Person {name: $start})-[*]->(:Person {name: $end}))
    RETURN p
    """)
    .withParameters(Map.of("start", "Alice", "end", "Bob"))
    .withConfig(QueryConfig.builder().withDatabase("neo4j").build())
    .execute();
var statuses = result.summary().gqlStatusObjects();
System.out.println(statuses);
/*
[
    InternalGqlStatusObject{gqlStatus='02000', statusDescription='note: no data', diagnosticRecord={OPERATION_CODE="0", OPERATION="", CURRENT_SCHEMA="/"}},
    code=Neo.ClientNotification.Statement.UnboundedVariableLengthPattern, title=The provided pattern is unbounded, consider adding an upper limit to the number of node hops., description=Using shortest path with an unbounded pattern will likely result in long execution times. It is recommended to use an upper limit to the number of node hops in your pattern., severityLevel=InternalNotificationSeverity[type=INFORMATION, level=800], rawSeverityLevel=INFORMATION, classification=PERFORMANCE, rawClassification=PERFORMANCE, position={offset=21, line=1, column=22}
]
*/

Filter notifications

By default, the server analyses each query for all categories and severity of notifications. Starting from version 5.22, you can use the configuration methods .withMinimumNotificationSeverity() and .withDisabledNotificationClassification() to tweak the severity and/or category/classification of notifications that you are interested into, or to disable them altogether. There is a slight performance gain in restricting the amount of notifications the server is allowed to raise.

The severity filter applies to both Neo4j and GQL notifications. The classification filter acts on both categories and classifications.

You can call the methods both on a Config object when creating a Driver instance, and on a SessionConfig object when creating a session.

Allow only WARNING notifications, but not of HINT or GENERIC classifications

// import java.util.Set
// import org.neo4j.driver.Config;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationClassification;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationConfig;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationSeverity;
// import org.neo4j.driver.SessionConfig;

// at `Driver` level
var driver = GraphDatabase.driver(
    dbUri, AuthTokens.basic(dbUser, dbPassword),
    Config.builder()
    .withMinimumNotificationSeverity(NotificationSeverity.WARNING)  // NotificationSeverity.OFF to disable entirely
    .withDisabledNotificationClassifications(Set.of(NotificationClassification.HINT, NotificationClassification.GENERIC))  // filters categories as well
    .build()
);

// at `Session` level
var session = driver.session(
    SessionConfig.builder()
    .withDatabase("neo4j")
    .withMinimumNotificationSeverity(NotificationSeverity.WARNING)  // NotificationSeverity.OFF to disable entirely
    .withDisabledNotificationClassifications(Set.of(NotificationClassification.HINT, NotificationClassification.GENERIC))  // filters categories as well
    .build()
);

Notifications filtering on versions earlier than 5.22

For versions earlier than 5.22, notification filtering is done via the configuration method .withNotificationConfig() (versions 5.7+).

The NotificationConfig interface provides the methods .enableMinimumSeverity(), .disableCategories(), and .disableAllConfig() to set the configuration.

Allow only WARNING notifications, but not of HINT or GENERIC category

// import java.util.Set
// import org.neo4j.driver.Config;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationCategory;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationConfig;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationSeverity;
// import org.neo4j.driver.SessionConfig;

// at `Driver` level
var driver = GraphDatabase.driver(
    dbUri, AuthTokens.basic(dbUser, dbPassword),
    Config.builder()
    .withNotificationConfig(NotificationConfig.defaultConfig()
        .enableMinimumSeverity(NotificationSeverity.WARNING)
        .disableCategories(Set.of(NotificationCategory.HINT, NotificationCategory.GENERIC))
    ).build()
);

// at `Session` level
var session = driver.session(
    SessionConfig.builder()
    .withDatabase("neo4j")
    .withNotificationConfig(NotificationConfig.defaultConfig()
        .enableMinimumSeverity(NotificationSeverity.WARNING)
        .disableCategories(Set.of(NotificationCategory.HINT, NotificationCategory.GENERIC))
    ).build()
);

Disable all notifications

// import org.neo4j.driver.Config;
// import org.neo4j.driver.NotificationConfig;
// import org.neo4j.driver.SessionConfig;

// at `Driver` level
var driver = GraphDatabase.driver(
    dbUri, AuthTokens.basic(dbUser, dbPassword),
    Config.builder()
    .withNotificationConfig(NotificationConfig.disableAllConfig())
    .build()
);

// at `Session` level
var session = driver.session(
    SessionConfig.builder()
    .withDatabase("neo4j")
    .withNotificationConfig(NotificationConfig.disableAllConfig())
    .build()
);