Building Better APIs: GraphQL and MuleSoft Working Together

source: linkedin.com

In today’s fast-moving tech world, making APIs that work well and are easy to use is very important. Two tools that help us do this are GraphQL and MuleSoft. In this article, we’ll look at how using these tools together can help us build better APIs.

What is GraphQL?

GraphQL is a way to get data from APIs that was created by Facebook in 2012. Unlike regular REST APIs where you have to make many calls to get different pieces of data, GraphQL lets you ask for exactly what you need in one call.

Think of it like ordering food at a restaurant:

• With REST APIs, it’s like having a fixed menu where each item comes as-is
• With GraphQL, it’s like telling the chef exactly what ingredients you want in your meal

Here’s a simple example of a GraphQL query:

query {
  user(id: "123") {
    name
    email
    posts {
      title
      date
    }
  }
}

This one query gets us:

• The user’s name and email
• All their posts’ titles and dates With REST, we might need 2–3 different API calls to get the same information.

What is MuleSoft?