apollo-cache-control

Apollo Cache Control (for Node.js)

This package is used to collect and expose cache control data in the Apollo Cache Control format.

It relies on instrumenting a GraphQL schema to collect cache control hints, and exposes cache control data for an individual request under extensions as part of the GraphQL response.

This data can be consumed by any tool to inform caching and visualize the cache policies that are in effect for a particular request.

Uses for this data include apollo-server-plugin-response-cache (which implements a full response cache) and setting cache-control HTTP headers.

See https://www.apollographql.com/docs/apollo-server/performance/caching/ for more details.

Usage

Apollo Server

Apollo Server includes built-in support for Apollo Cache Control from version 1.2.0 onwards.

The only code change required is to add tracing: true and cacheControl: true to the options passed to the Apollo Server middleware function for your framework of choice. For example, for Express:

app.use('/graphql', bodyParser.json(), graphqlExpress({
  schema,
  context: {},
  tracing: true,
  cacheControl: true
}));

If you are using express-graphql, we recommend you switch to Apollo Server. Both express-graphql and Apollo Server are based on the graphql-js reference implementation, and switching should only require changing a few lines of code.

Add cache hints to your schema

Cache hints can be added to your schema using directives on your types and fields. When executing your query, these hints will be used to compute an overall cache policy for the response. Hints on fields override hints specified on the target type.

type Post @cacheControl(maxAge: 240) {
  id: Int!
  title: String
  author: Author
  votes: Int @cacheControl(maxAge: 30)
  readByCurrentUser: Boolean! @cacheControl(scope: PRIVATE)
}

If you need to add cache hints dynamically, you can use a programmatic API from within your resolvers.

const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    post: (_, { id }, _, { cacheControl }) => {
      cacheControl.setCacheHint({ maxAge: 60 });
      return find(posts, { id });
    }
  }
}

If you're using TypeScript, you need the following:

import 'apollo-cache-control';

If set up correctly, for this query:

query {
  post(id: 1) {
    title
    votes
    readByCurrentUser
  }
}

You should receive cache control data in the extensions field of your response:

"cacheControl": {
  "version": 1,
  "hints": [
    {
      "path": [
        "post"
      ],
      "maxAge": 240
    },
    {
      "path": [
        "post",
        "votes"
      ],
      "maxAge": 30
    },
    {
      "path": [
        "post",
        "readByCurrentUser"
      ],
      "scope": "PRIVATE"
    }
  ]
}

Setting a default maxAge

The power of cache hints comes from being able to set them precisely to different values on different types and fields based on your understanding of your implementation's semantics. But when getting started with Apollo Cache Control, you might just want to apply the same maxAge to most of your resolvers. You can specify a default max age when you set up cacheControl in your server. This max age will be applied to all resolvers which don't explicitly set maxAge via schema hints (including schema hints on the type that they return) or the programmatic API. You can override this for a particular resolver or type by setting @cacheControl(maxAge: 0). For example, for Express:

app.use('/graphql', bodyParser.json(), graphqlExpress({
  schema,
  context: {},
  tracing: true,
  cacheControl: {
    defaultMaxAge: 5,
  },
}));

Similar packages

Other packages similar to apollo-cache-control

graphql-cache

graphql-cache is a package that provides caching capabilities for GraphQL queries. It allows you to cache responses based on query and variables, and it integrates with various caching backends. Compared to apollo-cache-control, graphql-cache focuses more on the caching mechanism itself rather than providing fine-grained cache control hints.

dataloader

dataloader is a generic utility for batching and caching data-fetching operations. While it is not specifically designed for GraphQL, it is commonly used in GraphQL servers to optimize data fetching. Unlike apollo-cache-control, which provides cache hints for responses, dataloader focuses on reducing redundant data fetching and improving performance through batching and caching.