Question

I have a Mongo database that I did not create or architect, is there a good way to introspect the db or print out what the structure is to start to get a handle on what types of data are being stored, how the data types are nested, etc?

Answer 1

Just query the database by running the following commands in the mongo shell:

use mydb //this switches to the database you want to query
show collections //this command will list all collections in the database
db.collectionName.find().pretty() //this will show all documents in the database in a readable format; do the same for each collection in the database

You should then be able to examine the document structure.