what is the recommended way to query an array of references?

You're almost there! Instead of using @-> with an alias, you can dereference the array directly:

articles[]->

This will give you the full referenced article documents directly in the array without any extra nesting.

Your current query:

articles[]{
  'article': @->
}

creates objects with an article property because you're explicitly projecting into that structure. The @ operator refers to the current element, and by wrapping it with 'article': @->, you're creating that nested object.

By using articles[]->, you're telling GROQ to:

1. Iterate through the articles array ([])
2. Dereference each reference (->)
3. Return the dereferenced documents directly

If you want to select specific fields from the referenced articles, you can also project within the dereference:

articles[]->{
  title,
  slug,
  publishedAt
}

This gives you an array of article objects with only the fields you specify, still without the extra nesting level.

The reference access operator works seamlessly with array projections - when you use -> on an array of references, it automatically dereferences all items in that array. This is the standard pattern for working with arrays of references in GROQ queries.