Tagging GraphQL Responses

Let's send the following GraphQL query to our SpaceX demo service and see how this is handled by GraphCDN.

query {
    launchesPast(limit: 2) {
        id
        mission_name
        launch_date_utc
    }
}

Internally GraphCDN extends the query being sent to your backend by asking for __typename fields for any types you have included in your query. The query on your backend would look like the following:

query {
    launchesPast(limit: 2) {
        __typename
        id
        mission_name
        launch_date_utc
    }
}

The response to the above query would look like the following JSON document. (Your response might show different values, depending on when you run the query, but the structure will be the same.)

{
    "data": {
        "launchesPast": [
            {
                "__typename": "Launch",
                "id": "109",
                "mission_name": "Starlink-15 (v1.0)",
                "launch_date_utc": "2020-10-24T15:31:00.000Z"
            },
            {
                "__typename": "Launch",
                "id": "108",
                "mission_name": "Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich",
                "launch_date_utc": "2020-11-21T17:17:00.000Z"
            }
        ]
    }
}

GraphCDN then takes a look at the response and figure out which types and instances of those types are included. This information informs which tags are added to the response when it is stored in the cache.

Based on the above query, those tags will look like the following:

📘

The actual format that GraphCDN uses is slightly different; it is shown here in a simplified state. GraphCDN includes additional required metadata for each tag, including the internal service ID.

• app:XYZ: an internal ID to identify records of a single GraphCDN service
• query:launchesPast: the root field used
• type:Launch: the type (or types) returned by the query
• key:Launch:id:109 the combination of type, key field, and value of that key field for a specific instance returned by the query
• key:Launch:id:108

Key Fields

If you have additional key fields defined for your types, GraphCDN tags documents with tags referencing those additional key fields as well.

For example, if the Launch type referenced above also has a field called launch_name that uniquely identifies a single launch, you could add this field to your list of key fields. Any query that fetches an entity of type Launch and also requests the launch_name key field is then also tagged with the appropriate tag:

• key:Launch:launch_name:Buttercup Moon

By default GraphCDN treats any id, _id and key fields on your types as key fields and tags responses with those. You can however configure this according to your requirements.

Nested Types

Similarly, if we extend our original query and ask for additional information available in nested types, GraphCDN would add tags for those types as well. Asking for more information about the rocket, for example,

query {
    launchesPast(limit: 2) {
        __typename
        id
        mission_name
        launch_date_utc
        rocket {
            __typename
            rocket {
                __typename
                id
            }
        }
    }
}

would return this response

{
    "data": {
        "launchesPast": [
            {
                "__typename": "Launch",
                "id": "109",
                "mission_name": "Starlink-15 (v1.0)",
                "launch_date_utc": "2020-10-24T15:31:00.000Z",
                "rocket": {
                    "__typename": "LaunchRocket",
                    "rocket": {
                        "__typename": "Rocket",
                        "id": "falcon9"
                    }
                }
            },
            {
                "__typename": "Launch",
                "id": "108",
                "mission_name": "Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich",
                "launch_date_utc": "2020-11-21T17:17:00.000Z",
                "rocket": {
                    "__typename": "LaunchRocket",
                    "rocket": {
                        "__typename": "Rocket",
                        "id": "falcon9"
                    }
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

and would store it in GraphCDNs edge cached tagged with the following tags:

• app:XYZ
• query:launchesPast
• type:Launch
• type:LaunchRocket
• type:Rocket
• key:Launch:id:109
• key:Launch:id:108
• key:Rocket:falcon9