GraphQL.js Docs Updates, April - May 2025

The GraphQL Foundation offers Community Grants to help incentivize key technical and community initiatives. As part of the grant, applicants commit to write a blog post report describing their work and its impact on the GraphQL community. The following report was written by grant recipient Sarah Sanders in June 2025, summarizing the documentation updates she contributed to the GraphQL.js reference guides during her project.

About the project

The GraphQL.js library is the reference implementation of the GraphQL specification in JavaScript, and it’s widely used both directly and indirectly by many GraphQL tools and servers. While the implementation itself is robust and actively maintained, the supporting documentation had room to grow—especially when it came to helping developers understand how GraphQL.js reflects the spec and how to use its APIs in real projects.

With that in mind, I applied for a GraphQL Foundation Community Grant to work on improving the GraphQL.js documentation. My goal was to make the guides more approachable for newcomers, more accurate for advanced users, and more aligned with the specification for everyone.

What I worked on

This project involved a full audit of the existing GraphQL.js guides, followed by targeted updates to improve clarity, structure, and completeness. I focused on areas that were either under-documented or potentially confusing, and worked to ensure the guides explained not just what GraphQL.js does, but why and how it does it.

Some key improvements include:

• Clearer explanations of schema construction and how types are defined in GraphQL.js
• Improved guidance on how execution and validation flow maps to the spec
• Expanded sections on custom scalars and other advanced patterns
• New guides on testing and production-readiness

All updates are live on the GraphQL.js docs site.

What’s next

I hope these updates help more developers learn and use GraphQL.js effectively, and serve as a foundation for future improvements to the reference documentation. There’s still more we can do and I’d love to see others in the community build on this work.

This project was a rewarding chance to contribute meaningfully to the GraphQL ecosystem, and I’m thankful to the maintainers who reviewed, discussed, and supported the updates throughout the process. If you’re considering a documentation or community contribution, I encourage you to explore the GraphQL Foundation’s Community Grant Program. It’s a great way to go deep, give back, and help others along the way.

Feel free to reach out if you’re thinking about submitting a proposal. I’m happy to share what I learned! You can reach me via GitHub or LinkedIn.