Cypher 101

You do not need to become a Cypher expert. You need to read Cypher well enough to debug what the LLM writes for you. A handful of patterns cover almost everything that shows up in this workshop: create a node, create a relationship, and match a path.

neo4j-browser
cypher
// Create two nodes and a relationship between them
CREATE (alice:Person {name: 'Alice'})
CREATE (acme:Company {name: 'Acme'})
CREATE (alice)-[:WORKS_AT {since: 2021}]->(acme);

// Ask for everything we just created
MATCH (p:Person)-[r:WORKS_AT]->(c:Company)
RETURN p.name, r.since, c.name;

Round brackets wrap nodes, square brackets wrap relationships, arrows show direction. The colon before a name is a label (for nodes) or a type (for relationships). Curly braces hold properties. Once you can read this, you can read the Cypher the LLM generates.

neo4j-browser
cypher
// Multi-hop: find people who work at companies that Alice's company partners with
MATCH (alice:Person {name: 'Alice'})-[:WORKS_AT]->(acme:Company)
      -[:PARTNERS_WITH]->(partner:Company)
      <-[:WORKS_AT]-(colleague:Person)
RETURN colleague.name, partner.name;

This is the shape that breaks vector RAG. A three-hop traversal across three relationship types. In SQL this would be three joins. In Cypher it is a single readable pattern. The LLM will generate queries like this for you.

Fill in the blanks: Complete the Cypher pattern

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Matching exercise: Match Cypher syntax to its meaning

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Quiz: Quiz

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