Operators — AQL

Operators

AQL operator	SQL equivalent
+	+ (addition or unary plus)
-	- (subtraction or unary minus)
*	* (multiplication)
/	/ (division)
=	=
!=	!=
<	<
<=	<=
>	>
>=	>=
and	AND
or	OR
??	COALESCE
in	IN
like	LIKE
ilike	ILIKE
is null	IS NULL
is not null	IS NOT NULL

Arithmetic

AQL supports binary arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /) and unary signs (+, -). Expressions follow standard mathematical operator precedence:

1. Unary +, - (e.g. - .discount)
2. Multiplicative *, /
3. Additive +, -
4. Comparisons & Null tests =, !=, <, <=, >, >=, is [not] null, ??
5. Logical and, then or

# Computed shape fields
select Order {
  id,
  subtotal,
  tax := .subtotal * 0.2,
  total := (.subtotal * 1.2) - .discount
};

# Filtering with arithmetic
multi select Product { id, title }
  filter .quantity * .unit_price >= $min_total - $rebate;

# Updating with arithmetic
update Account filter .id = $id<uuid>
  set { balance := .balance - $amount<int64> };

# Ordering by calculated expressions
multi select Product { id, name }
  order by .unit_price * .stock_count desc;

Null tests

is null / is not null are postfix operators — they test the operand on their left and take no right-hand side:

multi select Doc { id } filter .deleted_at is null;
multi select Doc { id } filter .published_at is not null;

This is distinct from ?? (coalesce), which substitutes a fallback value rather than testing for presence.

Combining conditions

Conditions chain with and / or to any length. As in SQL, and binds tighter than or, so a or b and c means a or (b and c).

multi select Project { *, members: { id } }
filter .owner = $owner<str> and .organization = $organization<str>
order by .created_at desc;

Parenthesize to group conditions explicitly. Groups nest to any depth:

multi select Post { id, title }
filter (.title like $q<str> or .content like $q<str>)
   and (.published = true or .author = $viewer<uuid>)
   and .deleted = false;

An optional parameter inside a chain relaxes only its own condition — the rest of the filter still applies. Here, omitting $author widens the search to every author, but never returns an unpublished post:

multi select Post { id } filter .published = true and .author = $author<uuid>?;