Designing Scalable GraphQL APIs

GraphQL offers a flexible alternative to REST, allowing clients to request exactly what they need. However, poor design can lead to performance issues.

Best Practices

1. Designing the Schema

Think in Graphs, not endpoints. Your schema should represent your business objects and their relationships.

2. Solving the N+1 Problem

A common pitfall where fetching a list results in N additional database queries for related data. Solution: Use DataLoader to batch and cache requests.

// DataLoader batches IDs and fetches all users in one query
const userLoader = new DataLoader(async (keys) => {
  const users = await User.find({ _id: { $in: keys } });
  return keys.map(key => users.find(user => user.id === key));
});

3. Authorization

Implement authorization in the Business Logic Layer, not just the resolver. This limits access regardless of how the data is accessed.

Conclusion

GraphQL empowers frontend developers, but backend engineers must implement strict query complexity limits to prevent resource exhaustion.

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