Automatic Persisted Queries

Automatic Persisted Queries is a protocol for reducing the overhead of sending the same GraphQL documents to the server over and over again. Thus reducing client to server upstream traffic.

Since the upload speed can be the bottleneck from client to server, reducing the payload size can improve the performance especially for huge GraphQL documents.

The GraphQL Yoga’s Automatic Persisted Queries plugin follows the APQ Specification of Apollo.

💡

Automatic Persisted Queries do not provide any security features, the benefit of using them is to reduce network overhead. If you want to avoid executing arbitrary GraphQL operations please use Persisted Operations.

Furthermore, an potential DDOS attacker could spam your GraphQL API with persisted operation registrations, thus completly disable the advantages you would get from APQ and, furthermore, even decrease the performance of your GraphQL API.

Installation

Quick Start

Using Automatic Persisted Queries requires installing a separate package.

npm i @graphql-yoga/plugin-apq

pnpm add @graphql-yoga/plugin-apq

yarn add @graphql-yoga/plugin-apq

bun add @graphql-yoga/plugin-apq

Automatic Persisted Queries Yoga setup

import { createServer } from 'node:http'
import { createSchema, createYoga } from 'graphql-yoga'
import { useAPQ } from '@graphql-yoga/plugin-apq'
 
const yoga = createYoga({
  schema: createSchema({
    typeDefs: /* GraphQL */ `
      type Query {
        hello: String!
      }
    `
  }),
  plugins: [useAPQ()]
})
 
const server = createServer(yoga)
server.listen(4000, () => {
  console.info('Server is running on http://localhost:4000/graphql')
})

Start your yoga server and send a request for priming the cache (register the operation).

Execute GraphQL Operation to prime the cache

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' http://localhost:4000/graphql \
  -d '{"query":"{__typename}","extensions":{"persistedQuery":{"version":1,"sha256Hash":"ecf4edb46db40b5132295c0291d62fb65d6759a9eedfa4d5d612dd5ec54a6b38"}}}'

Then afterwards we can send the same payload again, but this time omit the query field.

Execute GraphQL Operation without query payload

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' http://localhost:4000/graphql \
  -d '{"extensions":{"persistedQuery":{"version":1,"sha256Hash":"ecf4edb46db40b5132295c0291d62fb65d6759a9eedfa4d5d612dd5ec54a6b38"}}}'

Especially for big GraphQL document strings, the subsequent payload can be much smaller.

Client Usage

GraphQL clients such Apollo Client and Urql support Automatic Persisted Queries out of the box. Check the corresponding documentation for more information.

Custom Store

By default all the documents strings are stored in memory with an LRU cache that holds up to 1000 unique entries.

A custom store implementation can be provided via the store option.

Automatic Persisted Operations with a custom store

import { createServer } from 'node:http'
import { createSchema, createYoga } from 'graphql-yoga'
import { useAPQ } from '@graphql-yoga/plugin-apq'
 
// Note: this store grows infinitely, so it is not a good idea to use it in production.
const store: APQStore = new Map()
 
const yoga = createYoga({
  schema: createSchema({
    typeDefs: /* GraphQL */ `
      type Query {
        hello: String!
      }
    `
  }),
  plugins: [useAPQ({ store })]
})
 
const server = createServer(yoga)
server.listen(4000, () => {
  console.info('Server is running on http://localhost:4000/graphql')
})

For external stores the set and get properties on the store can also return a Promise.

💡

In production, it’s recommended to capture the errors from any store that could stop functioning. Instead of raising an error, returning undefined or null will allow the server to continue to respond to requests if the store goes down.

Automatic Persisted Operations with a redis store

import Keyv from 'keyv'
 
const store = new Keyv('redis://user:pass@localhost:6379')
 
useAPQ({
  store: {
    async get(key) {
      try {
        return await store.get(key)
      } catch (e) {
        console.error(`Error while fetching the operation: ${key}`, e)
      }
    },
    async set(key, value) {
      try {
        return await store.set(key, value)
      } catch (e) {
        console.error(`Error while saving the operation: ${key}`, e)
      }
    }
  }
})

Configure Error responses

By default, responses for missing or mismatching query will include extensions property with HTTP status code.

For example:

{
  extensions: {
    http: {
      status: 404
    },
    code: 'PERSISTED_QUERY_NOT_FOUND'
  }
}

You can force the error responses to use 200 OK status code:

Automatic Persisted Operations with a custom store

import { createServer } from 'node:http'
import { createSchema, createYoga } from 'graphql-yoga'
import { useAPQ } from '@graphql-yoga/plugin-apq'
 
// Note: this store grows infinitely, so it is not a good idea to use it in production.
const store: APQStore = new Map()
 
const yoga = createYoga({
  schema: createSchema({
    typeDefs: /* GraphQL */ `
      type Query {
        hello: String!
      }
    `
  }),
  plugins: [
    useAPQ({
      responseConfig: {
        forceStatusCodeOk: true
      }
    })
  ]
})
 
const server = createServer(yoga)
server.listen(4000, () => {
  console.info('Server is running on http://localhost:4000/graphql')
})

Persisted Operations Logging and Debugging