GraphQL APIs are excellent for frontend developers, providing acceleration for application development and an improved developer experience. However, new challenges for the security of these APIs arise. Here we explore finding the right balance for GraphQL API technology on a continuum between safety and progress.
GraphQL and microservices architectures are perfectly compatible. You can use GraphQL as a data layer and combine data from all these services into one universal API. And StepZen can be used as this API data layer.
Learn what it means for GraphQL to be a runtime under the hood.
Documentation is important to make your API understandable to your users. Writing documentation for GraphQL APIs is a bit different, as you'll learn in this article.
There are many different flavors in creating the perfect GraphQL server, ranging from SDL-first to code-first or even generated solutions. This article explores different approaches and a solution to create a GraphQL API without writing any code.
You can always read docs; make SQL, cURL, or GraphQL calls; and learn the backend capabilities by trying them. Why bother about introspection? It is the way for a program to build something extraordinary on top of it. It could be Swagger docs, GraphiQL, a database optimization program, a change management tool, or another programmatic approach.
Our guest blogger Leo is back to explore a hot topic around GraphQL directives. Looking at how directives are cateorized as query-type or schema-type and how important their functionalities are. So let's discuss the pros and cons and query-type directives that modify return values.
Sometimes we need to mix and match data from CMSs and other data sources. With StepZen, you can easily mix data from an external CMS with your own project by incorporating StepZen’s custom directives.
You can send a GraphQL query on stepzen.com/stickers and receive awesome swag-- learn how we built the page!
In this post, we learn how to allow an application to use two different GraphQL servers in a similar fashion. We adapt an application based on WPGraphQL to also work with the plugin GraphQL API for WordPress. This task involves adapting all field names and parameters in the GraphQL queries, converting from WPGrapQL's to the GraphQL API for WP's schema.
Learn about the GitHub repositories we've opened up to Hacktoberfest 2021 contributions.
Learn how to add a GraphQL API and a MySQL database to your StepZen data layer.
In a recent episode of "Learn With Jason", StepZen's Carlos Eberhardt and Netlify's Jason Lengstorf discussed the pros and cons of GraphQL for developers, and showed us how StepZen works to easily let you build a GraphQL API on a number of data sources!
GraphiQL provides an editor to compose GraphQL queries, and a way to visualize the response, and browse the schema. In this article, Leonardo Losoviz explores some clever ways to modify the content inside the GraphiQL editor via JavaScript, allowing website visitors to execute a different GraphQL query by clicking an HTML button.
As the backend developer or API provider, you do not want just to build out APIs, you want to build out APIs that are intuitive and easy to explore, test drive and learn. Here we argue that GraphQL is the right solution, not just for the frontend developer, but for the people whose jobs are to corral and carefully expose backends.
The expiration of access tokens is a security feature of the OAuth Authorization process. Using a custom GraphQL directive, StepZen lets developers continously keeping these tokens secure and up to date.
To speed app development, the divide between the frontend and the backend must be bridged. Databases providing GraphQL interfaces will bridge a part of the divide. But a middleware that speaks GraphQL on the top and native languages on the bottom will round out the solution.
How to build a GraphQL API that uses StepZen's custom rest, dbquery and sequence directives to complete a complex sequence of queries within in a single GraphQL query request.
Using the export directive to pass dynamic data from one query to the next and manipulate it in order to complete a complex sequence of requests via a single GraphQL query.
Create a Login UI/UX experience with the Google Sign-In API on a React Native mobile app. Once a user successfully logs in, we are writing a mutation in StepZen to pass the login credentials to FaunaDB.
While databases are still a critical part of the application stack, there is a gap between the way data is provided and the way frontend applications want to consume it. GraphQL can bridge that gap by being a middle layer between the frontend and the backend.
Implementing GraphQL doesn't mean abandoning your REST ecosystem-- far from it! Learn how adding a GraphQL layer capitalizes on the power of REST.
GraphQL is flexible enough to allow for some creative solutions. In this article, Leonardo Losoviz explores some out-of-the-box ways to use GraphQL for resource based endpoints, schema stitching and manipulating content.
StepZen's custom sequence directive allows for multiple queries to be executed in a sequence, one after the other to return a single result. In this example we will see how to use the sequence directive to query three APIs.
Learn how to add any GraphQL API to your StepZen data layer, by autogenerating your GraphQL schemas and deploying them to your StepZen endpoint.
Tips for mapping an existing application's data model into a GraphQL schema, using WordPress as an example.
Learn how to layer a GraphQL API, accessible via a StepZen endpoint, on your MySQL database.
GraphQL allows frontend developers to interact using their concepts and for the GraphQL layer to mediate with the backend implementations. GraphQL as the frontend API, as well as a few other constructs — interfaces, routing, and declarative specifications — give developers the tools to leverage the powerful backend-for-frontend pattern for decoupling.
There are some very promising proposals to improve the GraphQL spec under consideration. Leonardo Losoviz takes a deeper look at five of the most promising ones and what they'd mean for the future of GraphQL.
Here, we show you how to use fragments to clean up repeated code in your GraphQL schema.
Learn what scalar types are in GraphQL and what custom GraphQL scalar types StepZen provides to you.
An interview with Eve Porcello, who shares her view on the state of GraphQL and the JAMstack.
One of GraphQL's key benefits over REST is the ways that improves the developer experience. This post explores the key benefits GraphQL offers over REST in terms of developer experience.
Learn how to use StepZen and GraphQL mutations to generate QR Codes with Google Sheets.
GraphQL directives are one of GraphQL's most powerful features, enabling custom capabilities that are not yet supported by the GraphQL spec, and offering a glimpse of what GraphQL may look like in the future.
Make a React app with a GraphQL API in a single command using npx-create-stepzen-app
The usual debate is REST versus GraphQL, but are the two really that different after all? Let's look at the similarities and differences to understand which is best for your project.
Frontend developers are asked to build engaging online experiences. They need data from the backends. They must perform actions against backends. GraphQL APIs are fast becoming the language of modern app development. But who builds those APIs? Are they built quickly or are frontend developers left waiting? Who runs and manages the APIs?
To build today's web apps, you likely need data from a database. At the same time, GraphQL is playing an increasingly important role in modernizing data access to accelerate web development. See how your GraphQL view of your data can match the implementation - a set of database tables and joins.
Walk through how to use two popular GraphQL clients, GraphiQL and GraphQL Voyager, via screenshots to explore their features and usage.
GraphQL directives are a powerful aspect of the GraphQL spec that you may not even be aware of. They provide extensibility to to a GraphQL API. This post looks at what GraphQL directives are, how they are used and some examples of directives in use.
Along with the mintbean.io team, we wrapped a GraphQL:Learn 'n Hack Hackathon last week. Developers had a blast building with GraphQL and we loved working with everybody. Here are some of the projects that developers built.
Here, we give you an in-depth look at how you can easily use StepZen to connect your MySQL database to a GraphQL API.
A step-by-step guide demonstrating how to build a GraphQL API that pulls from multiple REST endpoints using StepZen.
APIs are a powerful way to fetch and combine data during static and dynamic builds. We believe that the potential of APIs in Jamstack applications is fully realized when APIs are easy to build and run and help developers seamlessly harmonize multiple data sources.
How to build a React frontend from scratch and query a GraphQL API with Apollo Client
What does a developer need to think through when deciding whether to build, own, and operate a GraphQL API service?
Let's explore the BFF pattern, how it applies to Jamstack applications and how to make it easier to implement.
Exploring three popular GraphQL JavaScript client libraries that you can use to connect to a GraphQL API in the browser or in Node.js.
We've added new capabilities that make it easy to connect your GraphQL endpoint with any REST data source, using the @rest directive.
A look at the intertwined evolution of the Jamstack and GraphQL and how popular Jamstack tools are built upon a GraphQL foundation.
A step-by-step guide to building a custom GraphQL API using StepZen that connects to a real MySQL backend.
A GraphQL query is just a standard HTTP request, no special libraries needed. Let's look at how to create one in JavaScript and Node.js.
Wouldn't it be great if it were as easy to create a GraphQL API from a Google Sheet as it is to share a Google Sheet with someone?
GraphQL queries are what allow GraphQL to be efficient in how it gets data, by allowing you to express only what you need but also exactly everything you need. In this post, we'll see how.
GraphQL is a relatively new technology but it offers enormous benefits over the traditional RESTful solutions for frontend and backend developers.