We'll try to get Python query builder out of the gate in the next couple of months. It's been requested forever, we'll try to make time for it. You're totally right that it's a missing puzzle piece right now.

On the bright side, codegen works really well. Put your EdgeQL query in an .edgeql file and our tooling will generate you a fully typed function around it. And with the new `if` expression in EdgeDB 4.0 you'll be able to do thing like:

    if (<str>$user_id) 
    then (select ...)
    else (insert ...);