Carlos Solares explains how GraphQL is used to connect the Netflix Studio on APIDays Melbourne 2019.

1. By Carlos Solares
Studio Workflow Engineering
Connecting the Netflix
Studio with GraphQL

2. I’m Carlos Solares,
Software Engineer at Netflix

3. First a little Netflix history

5. What’s cooler than mailing DVDs?

6. Sending it through the internet.

9. The filmmaking industry hasn’t changed
in 100 years.

10. *(me frustrated)

11. Studio
Engineering

12. Software for people making content

13. Netflix Ecosystem

14. Micro-service company.

15. Many teams own
different domains.

16. Too many ways to get
the data.

17. Ever evolving business.

18. •"Where can I find this data?"
•"How can I interact with this data?"
•"Does the data model change
often?"

19. GraphQL

20. Consumers can ask for
exactly what it needs.

21. query {
productions {
id
title
logline
cast {
id
name
}
}
}
POST /api/graphql

22. {
"data": {
"productions": [{
"id": "23",
"title": "Stranger Things S01",
"logline": "Strange sightings and a dark force
that turns a small town upside down.",
"cast": [{
"id": "51",
"name": "Winona Ryder"
}]
}]
}
}

23. GraphQL is strongly-
typed.

24. Data entities are
described in the schema.

25. GraphQL is easy to discover and explore.

26. So much server-side language support!
Node.js
Ruby
Java
Go
Elixir
Python
PHP

27. A GraphQL API can combine together many APIs
into into a single interface.

28. It’s not all good though.

29. Build as if the data sources are unstable.

30. Error handling is hard.

31. Build Queries and Mutations in a DDD
fashion.

32. productions(where: { and: {}, or: {} }) {
title
….
}

33. productions(status:, productionType:) {
title
….
}

34. Put effort into maintaining your schema.
type Production {
id: ID!
showName: String! @deprecated(reason: "Use title
instead. Will remove on 1/1/20.")
title: String!
….
}

35. Scope queries based on
reliability and performance
needs.

36. Don’t expose relationship
joins unless they’re
meaningful.

37. query {
production {
id
productionCrew {
associationId
crew {
name
}
}
}
}

38. query {
production {
id
crew {
name
}
}
}

39. Don’t expose foreign keys
as attributes.

40. query {
script {
id
title
authorId
}
}

41. query {
script {
id
title
author {
id
}
}
}

42. Non-Javascript client support
is OK at best.

43. (Attempt to) build towards a
single graph.

45. Thank you

46. Carlos Solares
twitter: @carsol_
We’re
hiring.
Come find me! ☕
csolares@netflix.com