March 2018 Summaries

The text discusses the benefits of using GraphQL as an API technology, particularly its focus on product developers' needs and the ability to associate queries with specific UI components. It introduces Apollo Engine, a monitoring and reporting tool that can provide detailed insights into GraphQL API performance and errors. The new features announced include daily Slack reports and service overviews, which allow users to track their most important queries and identify areas for improvement. These reports are designed to help developers quickly identify issues with their API, such as slow services or high error rates, and provide a bird's-eye view of the API's performance. The tool also allows users to set up daily Slack reports and provides a detailed view of operations, including request rate, p95 service time, and error percentage.

The latest release of React Apollo, version 2.1, introduces a new render prop API and improved TypeScript support, making it easier to develop React applications with GraphQL. The new `Query`, `Mutation`, and `Subscription` components use the render prop pattern to simplify data fetching and updating in React apps. Additionally, the `ApolloConsumer` component provides a way to access the Apollo Client instance directly via the render prop function, reducing code needed for simple local mutations. The release also includes revamped documentation and tutorials, improved search functionality, and contributions from various team members. Future plans include integrating React Suspense into React Apollo and releasing a new major version compatible with async strict mode in React 16.3.

The new GraphQL schema directives provide a powerful tool for simplifying GraphQL schema development. By using directives, developers can add metadata to their schema without having to modify the underlying SDL syntax. This allows for more flexibility and extensibility in GraphQL schema design. The `SchemaDirectiveVisitor` class provides a way to implement custom directive syntax and is designed to work with existing GraphQL server frameworks. It enables developers to create reusable directives that can be used across multiple projects, making it easier to maintain consistent schema designs. Additionally, the `makeExecutableSchema` function now accepts a `schemaDirectives` option, which allows developers to pass in their own custom directive implementations, further increasing flexibility and extensibility. The GraphQL community is encouraged to develop and publish their own custom directives, as this will help to create a rich ecosystem of tools and best practices for schema development.

Sashko Stubailo explores the benefits of wrapping a REST API with GraphQL, including easier data querying, frontend developer productivity, and more efficient networking. He demonstrates this using Node, Heroku, and Apollo Engine, creating a simple example server that wraps a Ticketmaster API. The schema defines the shape of the data, and resolvers wire it up to the underlying REST API. With Apollo Server and Engine, the GraphQL endpoint is attached to an Express server, enabling tracing, caching, and deployment on Heroku. Running queries locally allows for testing and verifying the performance benefits of using GraphQL. The article concludes with deploying the API to Heroku and testing its accessibility via cURL.

Apollo Bot is a tool introduced by the Apollo project to help its open source community contribute and engage with the codebases. The bot allows contributors to label issues and pull requests, providing quick actionable information for everyone involved. Labels such as "has-reproduction", "feature", "blocking", and "good first issue" have been carefully selected to provide context for contributors and maintainers. Apollo Bot also provides a way for contributors to help others by adding labels on any issue or pull request with a `/label` command, making it easier to get started and increase involvement in the community. The bot has the potential for integrations with other tools such as Slack, allowing for notifications and discussions around specific issues or pull requests. Apollo Bot is also available for self-installation on personal repositories, enabling users to take advantage of its features directly. The project welcomes contributions and ideas to improve the tool, including suggestions for an avatar.

Apollo Engine is a GraphQL gateway that provides caching, performance monitoring, and other features specifically for GraphQL. It's built from the ground up to empower product developers to feel confident about using GraphQL on top of existing infrastructure. The new 1.0 version of the apollo-engine npm package and standalone Docker container make it easier to set up Engine with a simpler API, reduced code duplication, and expanded support for Node web frameworks. This release also includes features like tracing, cacheControl, and improved performance and stability, as well as an ApolloEngineLauncher API for running the Engine binary as a standalone process. With this new setup, users can track query performance distribution over time, cache GraphQL results, and more, with a reworked documentation set to improve ease of use and feature development.

The GraphQL Schema Definition Language (SDL) is a core piece of building GraphQL APIs, allowing backends to abstract the makeup of backend services and frontends to validate and pre-ordain queries using introspection results. The SDL is a typed language for specifying various objects that can be accessed through a GraphQL API, with examples like `Post` and `Blog` types defined in a schema file. Prisma is an example of an SDL first tool that turns a database into a GraphQL API by letting users design their schema using the SDL, generating APIs for both the database and the GraphQL server. This approach allows for parallelizing product development, as seen in the deployment of a local Docker cluster to deploy a new GraphQL API from a Post SDL, enabling features like subscriptions and schema stitching, and can be used with existing backends by placing GraphQL over REST with tools like graphql-tools.

Apollo is hiring! The company, which started with a small team in January 2016, has expanded dramatically since then and is now looking to fill several key positions, including technical content writer, frontend application engineer, site reliability engineer, and visual designer. These roles will help the company empower developers using GraphQL technology, a growing field that is expected to hit the mainstream in 2018. The hiring process comes as the company prepares for significant growth and development in the coming year, with the goal of simplifying application development and making it faster than ever before.

The article provides an overview of the integration of Async React and Apollo Client, a popular GraphQL client library for React applications. The authors explain how they made their Apollo Client compatible with async React's new features like time slicing and suspense, which allows for more efficient data fetching and rendering of components while loading data from APIs or databases. They also demonstrate how to use the `asyncMode` prop in Apollo Query components to enable suspense, which pauses rendering until the promise is resolved. The authors highlight the benefits of using async React with Apollo Client, including improved performance, fluid applications, and better developer experience. They also mention future plans to explore new features like the simple-cache-provider and its potential integration with Apollo Client.