How can I return only user.profile.rating.content without getting the full profile and rating objects?

[arampakravan]

I’m on Payload v3.49 (MongoDB) and trying to fetch only specific deeply nested fields without over-fetching.
🔗 My setup

User → has profile (relationship)

Profile → has rating (relationship)

📄 Query I’m running

const res = await payload.find({
  collection: 'users',
  where: { email: { equals: '[email protected]' } },
  select: { profile: true },
  populate: {
    profile: {
      rating: { content: true }
    }
  },
  depth: 3,
});

✅ What I expect

Only the content field from the rating, nested inside profile:

{
  "profile": {
    "rating": {
      "content": "Great coach!"
    }
  }
}

❌ What I actually get (simplified)

{
  "profile": {
    "id": "abc123",
    "createdAt": "...",
    "updatedAt": "...",
    "fullName": "John Doe",
    "country": "Estonia",
    "rating": {
      "id": "xyz456",
      "createdAt": "...",
      "updatedAt": "...",
      "content": "Great coach!",
      "extraField1": "...",
      "extraField2": "..."
    }
  }
}

🤔 Questions

Is there a way to only return user.profile.rating.content (and avoid hydrating the rest of the profile and rating objects)?

Right now it seems:

    ❌ The profile object itself is never trimmed — I always get all profile fields (fullName, age, etc.).

Is this by design (relationship hydration always includes the entire doc)?