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Free course · 20 lessons · Advanced

GraphQL in Production

Design, secure and operate GraphQL APIs: schema design and nullability, mutations and errors, DataLoader and cost limits, persisted queries, Relay pagination, field-level authorization, observability, schema evolution, subscriptions and federation.

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1. GraphQL Fundamentals for API Designers

The execution model, schema design, operations, mutations and errors.

  1. How GraphQL Works — Schemas, operations, resolvers and the GraphQL-over-HTTP conventions.
  2. Designing a GraphQL Schema — Types, nullability, IDs, naming and modeling the domain for clients.
  3. Queries, Variables, Fragments and Operation Names — Write maintainable client operations and help the server observe them.
  4. Designing Mutations — Input types, payload types, idempotency and side effects.
  5. Error Handling: errors[] vs Errors as Data — Separate system failures from expected business outcomes.

2. Performance and Caching

N+1 and DataLoader, cost limits, persisted queries, pagination and client caches.

  1. Resolvers, N+1 and DataLoader — Batch and cache data loading per request.
  2. Protecting the Server: Depth, Complexity and Timeouts — Stop expensive or malicious queries before they run.
  3. Persisted Queries, Trusted Documents and HTTP Caching — Smaller requests, CDN caching and an allowlist of operations.
  4. Pagination with Relay Connections — Cursor-based pagination conventions most GraphQL clients understand.
  5. Client Caching and State — Normalized caches, cache policies and updates after mutations.

3. Security, Observability and Evolution

Authorization, hardening public endpoints, tracing and schema evolution.

  1. Authentication and Field-Level Authorization — Where auth lives in GraphQL and how to avoid data leaks.
  2. Hardening Public GraphQL Endpoints — Introspection, batching, CSRF and the OWASP GraphQL guidance.
  3. Observability for GraphQL — Per-operation and per-field metrics, tracing and error tracking.
  4. Schema Evolution, Deprecation and Registries — Evolve without versions: additive changes, @deprecated and breaking-change checks.

4. Advanced GraphQL

Subscriptions, federation, files and choosing GraphQL wisely.

  1. Subscriptions and Live Data — Real-time updates with graphql-ws, SSE and incremental delivery.
  2. Federation and Composite Schemas — Compose one graph from many team-owned services.
  3. Files and Binary Data in GraphQL — Why multipart uploads are discouraged and what to do instead.
  4. Choosing GraphQL Wisely — Where GraphQL shines, where it hurts, and hybrid architectures.

5. Capstone

Design and harden a production GraphQL API.

  1. Capstone: Design a Marketplace Graph — Design the schema, pagination and mutations for a two-sided marketplace.
  2. Capstone: Harden a Public GraphQL Endpoint — Find and fix the security and performance gaps in an existing GraphQL deployment.