The team at DocQL has been driving hard towards our beta launch, and I am very happy to announce it is finally here. DocQL was founded mid-2018, and this is the first public checkpoint we’ve reached for this product. This release begins our closed beta lifecycle. We are planning to open the beta to the public in the near future. If you didn’t have an opportunity to sign-up for the beta, head over to docql.io/beta and join.

What is DocQL

DocQL has a singular mission. To provide beautiful documentation & user guide websites for our customer’s GraphQL APIs. We accomplish this mission by leveraging the power of GraphQL’s introspection system to get a machine-readable description of your API, and then use that as the basis for generating a documentation website according to your needs.

Features Available Now

The features currently available are a subset of the many we have planned for the future. First and foremost, you can create an HA documentation website (an API Hub) for your GraphQL API today! We’ve launched with a fully responsive Bootstrap 4 theme for API Hubs, along with standard customization options. Many additional themes with varying layouts and styles are in the works. Here is the DocQL documentation site: docs.docql.io

Your GraphQL API’s schema is the basis for your API Hub. All of the hard work you’ve put into documenting your schema (the behavior of your mutations, what your enum variants represent, how to query for data appropriately) seamlessly carries over to your API Hub. We parse schema documentation as markdown, and then render it in a stylized fashion according to the theme you’ve chosen for your API Hub.

By default, a unique subdomain will be generated for your API Hub under the hubs.docql.io domain. All network traffic is fully encrypted with the latest TLS suites, with certificates from Let’s Encrypt, and HTTP/2 by default (will gracefully degrade to HTTP/1.1 for older systems).

Custom domains are fully supported with this launch. So, if you already have your GraphQL APIs up and running, you have the option of integrating your new DocQL API Hub into your current DNS namespace. In the DocQL control panel, you can specify the additional domain you would like your site to be served at, update your DNS provider (instructions are in the app), and then your site will be served from the custom domain. The networking stack is the same as the default subdomains mentioned above.

Roadmap & Upcoming Features

The Custom User Guides feature is the one which I am most excited about. In the DocQL control panel, you will be able add a git repository as a source for your API Hub’s custom user guides. We use a simple YAML based config file for configuring the ordering and layout of your custom guides. Game changer. Super stoked.

Automated Schema Synchronization is another big feature which is scheduled to land soon. Your GraphQL schema is going to evolve over time, especially if you are just getting started. When this feature lands, your API Hubs will always be synchronized with the GraphQL API from which they were generated.

There are too many to cover here, but needless to say, a lot of excellent features and improvements are on their way.

Conclusion

DocQL was founded to solve one of the most common software development issues: documentation. We want turn-key solutions that work, integrate well with the rest of our systems, and we don’t want to bend over backwards just to get it to work. GraphQL is revolutionizing the way we do APIs. DocQL is revolutionizing the way we do API documentation.

Stay tuned to hear more about the features we are rolling out. We plan to announce our next product in the very near future, which is blowing our minds right now, and we can’t wait to see it come to life.

If you don’t want to wait for the open beta, navigate over to docql.io/beta and sign-up. Keep on rocking until next time!