This is what we have been working on since the Netlify acquisition https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29253069. Still early days and in beta, but excited to see all the DX pieces coming together bit by bit!
When we did our original Launch HN (back in summer 2018! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17602951) this was one of the primary use-cases we had in mind. GraphQL provides such a rich layer for API tooling, but bringing it all together from a developer's point of view can be pretty challenging. Hopefully this spin on it (and the built-in integrations we're rolling out for specific frameworks) should make it significantly easier.
Lots of plans (a pure vscode workflow is high on my personal wishlist), but it's time to share the current state of things with all of you folks!
Are you all planning to implement as extensive of a collection of integrations as Zapier has?
You may find the Zapier's developer platform useful. Instead of using pre-built integrations, you can develop and ship your own Node.js packages for private use. I've got a fleet of them that can do basically anything, but also play nice with the rest of the platform.
I'm not sure exactly what your pain points are here, but there's definitely an "escape hatch" for power users!
Is it possible to add a custom (3rd party) GraphQL endpoint to Netlify Graph at this stage?
Congrats on the launch, this looks really neat.
We already do this for a handful of frameworks (plain functions, next.js, remix, etc.). Here's a bit of an older example (with a much older UI) of how it works with a very plain project mapping various GraphQL operations to next.js https://youtu.be/0LJr15A0t4Y?t=73, including
- client-side forms
- server-side form validation
- auto-detecting when the user needs to log into a service client-side to do some query/action
- prompting the user to log into the service
- re-running the query on successful login
Jason knew next to nothing about the current state of Netlify Graph (to keep the experience authentic), so it's pretty fun to see his reactions.
Also, the app is live for anyone to use! https://netlify-graph-nextjs.netlify.app/SpotifySearchForm
The initial integration is usually straightforward, but the maintanence of these seemingly simple API wrappers is what bites back in the long run.
With having lots of integrations, these are the usual failure points:
1. Teams find it hard to keep track of all the changelogs across APIs.
2. Failing at [1] means that API changes get noticed much later and having to cram the work into product development cycles.
i hope more updates keep coming (i want explorer in the UI! not the CLI!) but this is a positive start.
The whole flow works really, really well inside of vscode with the GraphQL extension - you get autocomplete, docs, etc. And upon save, it's that same as if you had edited it in the web UI. It should even be compatible with the GraphiQL explorer extension inside of vscode (though I haven't tried it yet) https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GabrielN...
And it's always tempting fate to say "we have more planned", but, well, we have more planned...
Another simple one would be building a chart of Salesforce opportunities to serve as an office sales gong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTaETEkZ6hE
We have customers who build a product using Netlify Graph to manage Salesforce leads/opportunities/etc. inside of Slack, etc.
Maybe I'm dense - but what is the value add here? I can pull data from github Api and build an app. Or I can pull data via netlify graph, from the github api, and build an app?
Does netlify provide the "server side" here, holding my github api keys, away from the browser that runs the app? Or something else?
I like how Netlify went with a low-code approach that provides not only speed and flexibility, but also greatly helps with long-term maintenance. Web apps are now more connected and heterogenous than ever - there is a need to quickly and easily connect with various APIs. No-code falls short in providing performant and maintainable code bases. GraphQL-based tools could be the solution. Netlify seems to have taken the lead here. I only worry about potential vendor lock-in.
Congrats!