GraphQL
Client-specified queries, N+1 resolution and query-cost control.
4 to work through
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intermediate
A team debates REST and GraphQL for a new public API. What should actually decide it, and what is the operational cost each one imposes?
2 min answer -
advanced
A commerce platform moves its primary API from REST to GraphQL. What genuinely improves for third-party developers, and what new problems does the platform acquire?
2 min answer -
advanced Multiple choice
A shared API is a bottleneck for four client teams. Does a flexible query language fix it?
1 min answer -
advanced
A team is about to launch a public GraphQL API. What must be in place before it goes live?
2 min answer
4 terms in this topic
GraphQL N+1 Problem
The query explosion that occurs when each item in a list independently resolves its nested fields, turning one request into hundreds of database calls.
conceptN+1 Resolution
The default GraphQL execution behaviour in which each field resolver runs per item, producing one query per row instead of one query per request.
patternPersisted Query
Registering allowed queries in advance and having clients send an identifier instead of the query text.
practiceQuery Cost Analysis
Computing the resource cost of a client-specified query before executing it, so that an API which lets clients define their own requests cannot be as…
Neighbouring topics
API & Integration
General material on integrating systems through contracts.
REST Design
Resources, uniform methods, status codes and statelessness.
gRPC APIs
Contract-first RPC, generated clients and protobuf compatibility rules.
Webhooks
Push callbacks, signature verification, ordering and at-least-once delivery.
API Versioning
URL, header and account-pinned versioning, and who carries the burden.
Backward Compatibility
Which changes are safe, and how to make breakage a build failure.
Contract Testing
Verifying what consumers actually rely on, without a shared environment.
API Documentation
OpenAPI as a machine-checked contract rather than as prose.
Rate Limiting
Algorithms, shared counters, and signalling rejection properly.
Idempotency Keys
Client-generated keys stored atomically with the operation they guard.
Pagination & Filtering
Offset versus cursor, stable ordering and unbounded result sets.
API Error Handling
Error shapes, retryability signals and machine-readable causes.
Event-Driven Integration
Publishing facts rather than commands, and versioning event schemas.
Message Formats
JSON, Protobuf, Avro — schema evolution and payload economics.
Schema Registry
Enforcing compatibility on events the way CI enforces it on code.
Integration Patterns
Routers, translators, splitters, aggregators and dead letter channels.
Legacy Integration
Reaching systems that cannot change, without importing their model.
Partner & B2B Integration
External contracts, onboarding, sandboxes and long deprecation windows.
APIs as Products
Ownership, lifecycle, deprecation policy and developer experience.