July 2024 Summaries

Rover, the GraphOS local development CLI, has been improved to make it faster for developers to contribute to supergraphs using subgraph mirroring. This feature enables users to spin up a locally running supergraph in seconds by pulling down subgraph routing URLs and schemas from a GraphOS Studio variant. Subgraph mirroring reduces time spent getting up and running locally for teams maintaining supergraphs with dozens or hundreds of subgraphs, saving contributors from wasting time writing or debugging supergraph configs. The feature also allows users to quickly test subgraph changes before publishing them, making it easier to maintain a simpler supergraph config with just the subgraphs they want to override. Additionally, Rover has received quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes in its previous release, including more helpful linting messages, better support for router customizations, native Apple Silicon binaries, and several other fixes. The latest update brings Studio and Rover closer together, and Apollo is working on further improvements to the Federation contributor experience across all local development tools.

Apollo Client 3.11 introduces several features and improvements, including enhanced subscription APIs with the ability to access `subscribeToMore` in Suspense-enabled hooks, a new `ignoreResults` option for `useSubscription`, and a `restart` function that reconnects subscriptions when called. The release also adds official support for React 19 release candidate versions with improved React Compiler compatibility. New Apollo Client Devtools options are available, including the ability to inspect and monitor multiple client instances and add a custom name to client instances. Additionally, the experimental schema testing utilities have been deprecated in favor of the new `@apollo/graphql-testing-library` package. Potentially breaking fixes include updates to the GraphQL error types and changes to how `nextFetchPolicy` is called.

Apollo GraphOS has recently shipped significant reliability and usability improvements to its schema checks and insights. These updates enable API teams to test for breaking changes before rolling out schema updates, allowing them to deliver changes quickly without impacting reliability downstream. The new features include improved operation checks for interface and union types, the ability to ignore potentially breaking changes and default value changes, enhanced usability of the operation checks page, and enhanced signature reporting in Apollo Router. Additionally, GraphOS now shows insights on all input object fields and enum values used in operations, allowing for better checking and marking of schema checks as passing. These updates aim to promote agility and evolve APIs according to business needs while maintaining reliability.

Netflix, the world's most popular streaming service, transitioned from a physical DVD business to the cloud and developed an API platform that powered its shift. The company went through four generations of APIs before transitioning to GraphQL Federation, a federated supergraph architecture that promoted collaboration, managed tech debt, and broke down organizational barriers. Netflix learned valuable lessons during this journey, including detangling the monolith, investing in schema developer experience, and managing tech debt and organizational barriers. By adopting GraphQL Federation, Netflix unlocked API success and is now focusing on building an open culture to remain agile in a rapidly changing environment.