Do this before you use Apollo Client

Apollo Client has been a crucial part of CodePen’s frontend code from the moment we started using a GraphQL API on the backend. Before we had Apollo Client we had to handle the caching of state an request management ourselves. That was a lot of code to write.

The one thing I’ll say though is to make sure you really understand what how cache normalization works before you use this tool. I thought I got it, but I didn’t reallllly get it before I started building with it and it created a lot of confusion and heartache. When I got my head around the mental model of Objects and References in the cache, things fell in to place.

I would recommend reading these until you understand:

• Caching in Apollo Client
• Demystifying Cache Normalization

You might be thinking “is she suggesting I read the docs? duh”. I’m writing this for people like me who like to get their hands dirty before they RTFM. Apollo Client is not the time for that.