Possible to post to Apollo server with protobuf?

Question

I am working on a project that currently uses protobuf to communicate from the client to the api. I would like to do a proof of concept showing communication via graphql, and am wondering if its possible to send protobuf to apollo server instead of json.

also asked in spectrum for apollo server: https://spectrum.chat/apollo/apollo-server/is-there-support-in-the-road-map-at-all-for-sending-protobuf-from-the-client~dbdbc639-d7c7-4d0f-9caa-b58bb3744a90

I see a few protobuf related packages, https://www.npmjs.com/package/apollo-engine-reporting-protobuf https://www.npmjs.com/package/@apollo/protobufjs

and am wondering if there are any plans for this or if it's possible. asking here because i've received no response on the community site.

Answer 1

If you can use apollo-server-express, you can achieve that as long as you can convert the protobuf to json again on the server, which I guess it is possible with protobuf.js.

apollo-server or apollo-server-express expects three key-pair values in the request body

1. operationName

2. variables

3. query

This is how request body looks like (logged using morgan-body)

If you are using apollo-server-express, you can use your custom express middleware in which you can deserialize the protobuf to json and add the json to the req.body for Apollo Server.

Changing from apollo-server to apollo-server-express just takes a few steps and no change in your apollo server config

// import it from apollo-server-express instead of apollo-server
const { ApolloServer } = require('apollo-server-express');
const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.use((req, res, next) => {
    // Intercept the request before it reaches the Apollo Server
    // Use protobuf.js to deserialize the request body into json
    // Add the json to req.body
    // Call the next() to go to next middleware
    next();
});

const server = new ApolloServer({/* Your apollo server config */})

server.applyMiddleware({ app });
app.listen({ port: 4000 }, () => console.log(` Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`));