Docs & Guides for your GraphQL APIs
Today we are introducing the world to DocQL. A brand new product built around the GraphQL ecosystem. It utilizes the powerful internals of GraphQL to dynamically analyze the schema of our client’s GraphQL APIs, and generate beautiful documentation websites (we call them API Hubs) based on that analysis. However, simple schema documentation is not good enough for most developers, and other features are critically needed in order to provide a robust documentation experience, and that is what we are delivering with DocQL.
We have been working very hard to deliver this product, and I am very pleased to say that we are only weeks away from launching our beta program. I decided to start this company because I have observed that there is a major lack of tooling available on this front. As a developer, I have built countless APIs, many of which were GraphQL APIs, and there is no question that GraphQL is a game changing technology choice. The experience of building GraphQL APIs is one of speed and stability, but when it comes time to open up your API to the world, you may find yourself with the daunting task of building a documentation site that is as robust as the underlying API itself.
The DocQL team is focused on delivering a turn-key solution to this problem. We know that for many engineering teams — including multiple teams that I have lead — allocating the time to manually build a solution in an already slammed roadmap … it’s just not gonna happen. When you find yourself in this situation, you are often left with options that only solve one part of the problem, are usually fairly cringe to look at, and which are lacking needed features and functionality. Happens to a lot of teams. Happened to me. May have happened to you. With DocQL, that won’t be a problem anymore.
The DocQL platform continually monitors your GraphQL APIs for schema changes, so that as soon as your API is updated, your documentation is updated as well. Custom user guides are integrated into your API Hub by simply pointing the DocQL platform to your documentation repo. We’ll pull in your markdown files, parse them, render them, and display them on your API Hub.
The DocQL team is hard at work building beautiful themes for your API Hubs. We choose popular CSS/JS frameworks, design robust templates based on those frameworks, and then expose them to our clients as themes for their API Hubs. We will constantly be refining them and adding new themes to keep up-to-date with modern styles and patterns.
Now, I’m a developer’s developer, and a major language enthusiast, and I am very happy to share that our entire platform has been built with Rust. The speed at which we have been able to build this system, and the stability we have seen while doing so, is very largely due to this fantastic language, and its even more fantastic community. I literally have too many good things to say about all of the above.
There is much, much more that I want to share about DocQL, and I will do so in our future blog posts. Lots of additional features are in the pipeline, but for now, head over to docql.io, click around, sign up for our beta program, and at a very minimum, let me know what you think on twitter @AnthonyJDodd. We are stoked to see the awesome things that are happening in the GraphQL community, the Rust & JS communities, and the software world as a whole. Exciting times. Cheers!
