Support Relay Modern and Apollo out of the box

[gaearon]

We have a few separate issues about this but given the huge growth in GraphQL popularity over the year I think it would be sensible to hardcode support both for Apollo and Relay Modern, without a need for extra macros etc. I’m open to proposals about how this should work, and a proof of concept PR.

[wtgtybhertgeghgtwtg]

Can't say much about Relay, but I haven't had to do anything special to get Apollo to work. I think using either implies a server, though, and the documentation for using create-react-app with a server is a little dated.

[iansu]

I've also used Apollo client (version 1 and 2) with create-react-app without ejecting. Some documentation on setting it up could be helpful though.

I haven't used Relay before but now I'm curious to give it a try and see if there are any issues.

[swyxio]

agree that apollo doesnt need any extra setup at all. Dan could you clarify what you mean by "hardcode support without a need for extra macros"?

[gaearon]

If Apollo works out of the box, what is #1792 about?

[iansu]

That's about importing .graphql files. You can use Apollo with tagged template literals in your components but you can't put your queries in external files because we don't provide a loader for them. That seems like a good, and relatively easy, thing to add support for.

[gaearon]

Do Relay Modern and Apollo compile GraphQL to the same intermediate representation? I’m just trying to understand if, by implementing this, we’d hardcode support for Apollo, or it would just be a GraphQL thing.

[iansu]

I believe they are both based on and use graphql-js https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js so they should be compatible. In this case I think the webpack loader would just provide the contents of the graphql file which would then be passed to either client (Relay or Apollo) to be compiled, etc.

This is based on my experience with Apollo. It's possible that Relay is completely different but I don't think that's the case.

[petetnt]

Did some initial research (lots of Apollo experience, none of Relay) and graphql-tag/loader should work for both Relay and Apollo. I could do some testing and submit a PR for .graphql loader if it works 👍

[iansu]

That would be great. Thanks!

[petetnt]

Initial PR pending for the loader at #3909 👍

[guledali]

@gaearon A minimal graphql client is the best option something like this

https://github.com/kadirahq/lokka
https://github.com/prismagraphql/graphql-request

This how gatsby does it

[iansu]

I think this issue can be closed now. We have support for loading .graphql files in the next branch. People can easily add Apollo Client or URQL or one of the other clients mentioned above. I don't think we want to pick a client to ship with CRA.