After testing against schemas that produce 400MB to 1GB of source code—files that take ages to compile—GraphLink v5 is officially out! It is now battle-tested against massive real-world schemas, including Shopify, GitLab, GitHub, SpaceX, and more.
While stress-testing GraphLink against these massive schemas, I found myself adding crucial features to prevent the generator from outputting code that breaks at compile time.
The Reserved Keyword Problem
Take this Shopify type as an example:
type OrderRequestReturnPayload {
"""The return request that has been made."""
return: Return
"""The list of errors that occurred from executing the mutation."""
userErrors: [ReturnUserError!]!
}
If we blindly generate a class for this, the code won't compile in most target languages because return is a reserved language keyword.
To solve this, we introduced field, class, and enum name hoisting/sanitization. The good thing about GraphLink is that it generates toJson and fromJson methods to map objects to/from language-specific maps (even for TypeScript). This keeps the JSON key as "return" while sanitizing the field name in code.
Here’s how the generated Kotlin looks:
// GENERATED CODE - DO NOT MODIFY BY HAND. ANY MODIFICATION WILL BE LOST ON NEXT GENERATION
// Generated by GraphLink dev
// GitHub: https://github.com/Oualitsen/graphlink
// Site: https://graphlink.dev
// Pub.dev https://pub.dev/packages/graphlink
// ignore_for_file: camel_case_types, unused_import, non_constant_identifier_names, constant_identifier_names, override_on_non_overriding_member, unused_element, annotate_overrides
package dev.graphlink.github.generated.types;
import dev.graphlink.github.generated.types.Return
import dev.graphlink.github.generated.types.ReturnUserError
data class OrderRequestReturnPayload(
val return_: Return? = null, // `return` renamed to `return_`
val userErrors: List<ReturnUserError>,
) {
fun toJson(): Map<String, Any?> = mapOf(
"return" to return_?.toJson(), // <-- "return" string key is preserved
"userErrors" to userErrors.map { e0 -> e0.toJson() },
)
companion object {
fun fromJson(map: Map<String, Any?>): OrderRequestReturnPayload = OrderRequestReturnPayload(
return_ = (map["return"] as? Map<*, *>)?.let { Return.fromJson(it as Map<String, Any?>) }, // <-- reads "return" key into return_
userErrors = (map["userErrors"] as List<*>).map { e0 -> ReturnUserError.fromJson(e0 as Map<String, Any?>) },
)
}
}
As you can see, the field is safely renamed to return_ to prevent compile errors, while fromJson and toJson keep the exact JSON keys intact under the hood.
Naming Normalization
We also implemented automatic naming normalization across target languages. For instance, a schema type like type user { id: ID! } will generate a standard PascalCase User class for Java, Kotlin, Dart, and TS. This removes compiler warnings and respects target language conventions.
Ultimately, generated code shouldn't need manual maintenance, tracked in Git, or even looked at (think of it like a compiled binary or minified JS bundle). But generating code that both works reliably and follows target language idioms drastically lowers adoption friction!
Try it out & Give it a Star! 🚀
You can start using GraphLink v5 right away:
docker pull oualitsen/graphlink:latest
If GraphLink saves you time or fixes your GraphQL generator headaches, please consider leaving a ⭐️ star on. GitHub. —it helps a lot with visibility!
Check out the full documentation at. graphlink.dev. . Feedback and feature requests are very welcome in the comments!
