Incorporate meta-fields into ExecuteCollectedFields

At a glance

• Identifier: #1177
• Stage: RFC1: Proposal
• Champion: @benjie
• PR: Incorporate meta-fields into ExecuteCollectedFields

Timeline

• 4 commits pushed on 2025-07-04:
  • Introduce ResolveMetaFieldValue algorithm by @benjie
  • Refactor to add assertion by @benjie
  • This should require less refactoring when we add future meta-fields by @benjie
  • Could be an introspection type by @benjie
• Spec PR created on 2025-07-03 by benjie
• Commit pushed: Incorporate meta-fields into ExecuteCollectedFields on 2025-07-03 by @benjie
• Added to 2025-07-03 WG agenda

---

GraphQL.js uses a getFieldDef() helper:

https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/9032db1e4e55052bead6936359ecc5592c817f64/src/execution/execute.ts#L1047-L1079

called from executeField() to get the field definition to execute; returning meta-field definitions as appropriate.

This spec change reflects this existing behavior as best we can.

(Technically GraphQL.js' executeField() function overlaps responsibilities between the ExecuteField() and ExecuteCollectedFields() algorithms in the spec - specifically, executeField() may return undefined, resulting in executeFields() not adding the entry to the result object, whereas this conditional addition is handled in ExecuteCollectedFields() in the spec and we cannot/should not differentiate between null and undefined in this way.)