The Ultimate Guide To GraphQL Error Handling

Error handling in GraphQL is often not easy. It’s actually pretty hard. This is why many developers struggle to build a really usable GraphQL.

If this sounds like you, you are not alone. If it doesn’t sound like you, you might still stumble upon these issues soon.

A good API can be a game-changer, especially if the product you build does not only want to rely on a user interface you provide. Even if it’s only your own product that suffers from difficult error handling, any frontend engineer (and even yourself) will thank you if you make handling errors as simple as possible.

There are gladly a few strategies that you can apply to improve the error handling of your GraphQL API, which will make it an overall more pleasure to use and work with.

None of these are difficult to implement, they just require some careful thinking and planning before you can implement them.

The Issue With GraphQL And Errors

GraphQL is an amazing API technology, but it has its “flaws”.

It’s great to enable your clients to simply retrieve only the data they really care for (while leaving out all the additional burden of the 321 properties they will never need in their lifetime). But if you use GraphQL over HTTP (yes, that…