The Two GraphQLs

Session description

When adopting GraphQL, teams diligently follow "best practices" without realizing they're actually choosing between two fundamentally different approaches: designing schemas to serve UI components (frontend-first) or to represent domain models (structure-first). This distinction is rarely framed as an explicit choice in GraphQL literature, with most examples showcasing the structure-first approach by default. Yet this initial decision shapes everything from your team structure to how you handle breaking changes—and if you start with a structure-first approach, it's especially difficult to unwind that decision later. In this session, we'll explore the critical differences between these philosophies, examine how they manifest in real schemas, and analyze the trade-offs each approach presents. You'll see how changes that feel natural in one approach become deeply problematic in the other, and learn to identify which patterns your team has already begun to follow.