💃 The Fast and the Query-ous 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! Let’s be honest: calling Salesforce REST APIs feels like assembling IKEA furniture with no instructions. 😡 

Tedious, repetitive, and filled with unnecessary nesting.

But GraphQL?

It’s the hex key you didn’t know you needed. 🗝️ Salesforce’s GraphQL API lets you ask for exactly what you want, and get exactly that.

No more, no less. 👌 

If you’re a Salesforce architect, dev, or consultant tired of over-fetching fields and chaining REST calls, it’s time to take a closer look at Salesforce’s GraphQL API.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

💃 The Fast and the Query-ous 🕺

• What the Query?

• Why Should You Care?

• Anatomy of a Query

• Gotchas and Guardrails

• One Query to Rule Them All

IT’S REST, BUT MAKE IT ELEGANT

WHAT THE QUERY?

GraphQL is a query language for APIs. Not a database or a replacement for SOQL. ❌ 

Think of it as an API router with a customizable payload: you shape the request, and the response mirrors it.

This eliminates the over-fetching and under-fetching problems that plague REST. 🎉 

Where REST forces you into multiple round trips (GET /account, then GET /contacts, then GET /opportunities...), GraphQL consolidates it all into a single POST.

Example: One query, many objects. 👇️ 

query {
  uiapi {
    query {
      Account(where: { Name: { eq: "Acme Corp" } }) {
        edges {
          node {
            Name
            Industry
            Contacts {
              edges {
                node {
                  Name
                  Email
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This query fetches Accounts, nested Contacts, and specific fields. All in one clean request. 🫧 

That’s GraphQL’s real power: shape the response to match the client’s exact needs.

FEWER CALLS, FASTER RESPONSES

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

In enterprise-scale orgs (think 500+ custom objects, thousands of fields, and multiple UI clients) performance isn’t just nice to have.

It’s survival. ⚔️ 

GraphQL shines in these scenarios:

🔗 Headless apps (mobile, LWC, React, or SPA clients)

🧩 Composite UIs (Experience Cloud portals, dashboards)

🔏 Client-controlled payloads (for pixel-perfect data)

📈 Read-heavy integrations (reporting layers, Snowflake pipelines)

Unlike Composite REST, GraphQL doesn't return every field by default. You must specify what you want, which results in:

🤏 Smaller payloads

⚡️ Faster network times

✅ Simplified client parsing

Imagine exposing a schema-driven, contract-first API to your frontend team.

Suddenly they’re building dynamic UIs without waiting for backend changes. 🔥 

It's almost … collaborative. 🤔 

SCHEMA. QUERY. CURSOR. REPEAT

ANATOMY OF A QUERY

Salesforce’s GraphQL API wraps your queries inside a uiapi namespace. Currently the only one GA as of now. 👈️ 

Here’s what makes up a typical request:

📦️ Namespace: uiapi for now (Data Cloud & CustomGraphQL are in pilot)

🌳 Root Query: query { Account { ... } }

🥤 Filters: where: { Name: { eq: "Acme" } }

📄 Pagination: edges, node, cursor

↔️ Relationships: Nested queries supported via standard relationships

🔐 Field Access: You only get what you explicitly request

Example: Apex-flavored mental model

List<Account> accts = [
  SELECT Name, Industry,
         (SELECT Name, Email FROM Contacts)
  FROM Account
  WHERE Name = 'Acme Corp'
];

Now imagine querying that in a single POST from your front-end with exactly those fields and no JSON bloat.

That’s the GraphQL experience. 😋 

NO SOUP FOR YOU … YET

GOTCHAS AND GUARDRAILS

Before you GraphQL all the things, here’s what to watch for: 🔍️ 

📦️ Namespace Limitation: Only uiapi is GA. Custom types, write ops, and Data Cloud need pilot access.

📊 Governor Limits Apply: Under the hood, GraphQL uses Apex and SOQL. You’re still in Salesforce land. No free lunches.

💔 Schema Drift: If fields are removed or renamed, queries break. This is great for finding unused fields, but painful if not versioned properly.

⏳️ No Write Support Yet: Mutations are in Beta. Until then, GraphQL is read-only for production.

GraphQL isn’t a silver bullet. But when it fits the use case? It's glorious.

🚧 As of this writing, GraphQL write support (mutations) is still in pilot.

That means you can insert, update, or delete records, but only in special orgs with pilot access and lots of caveats. 🎀 

mutation {
  uiapi {
    createAccount(input: {
      Name: "NewCo",
      Industry: "Technology"
    }) {
      clientMutationId
    }
  }
}

Eventually, this could make GraphQL a true one-stop-shop for CRUD. 💯 

For now? REST and Composite still wear the write crown.

LESS NOISE. MORE SIGNAL.

ONE QUERY TO RULE THEM ALL

Salesforce’s GraphQL API isn’t here to replace REST.

But for read-heavy, client-driven, relationship-rich applications, it’s a clear winner. 🥇 

You get smaller payloads, simpler clients, and more responsive UIs all while staying inside the Salesforce toolbelt.

So if you haven’t already, fire up GraphQL Explorer and start tinkering. It may just change how you think about integrations, UIs, and even data modeling. 🧠 

And the next time someone asks why their dashboard takes 6 seconds to load?

Tell them: “You need less REST. And more GraphQL.” 🫡 

SOUL FOOD

Today’s Principle

and now....Salesforce Memes