Summary
The Graph’s Community Talk #23 was held on Tuesday, May 16th @8AM PST.
The Graph’s Community Talk covers a wide range of subjects from all corners of our network and provides attendees with a comprehensive recap of the latest happenings within The Graph ecosystem. The meetings are held in The Graph Stage channel of the Discord Server.
Tip: Go to the Events channel at the top of the Discord server and set yourself a reminder for The Graph’s Community Talk.
Community Talk #23 featured updates on The Graph community activities and achievements, an introduction to Graphcast, a gossip network for The Graph, insights from the SG Hack Graphica Hackathon centered around subgraphs, a comprehensive Graph Client tutorial by Araujo, and an overview of “The Graph Mini-Series” a tutorial series by Nestor Bonilla in collaboration with Celo.
Detailed notes regarding each topic with timestamps can be found below.
The Graph Community Talk is geared towards a broad audience regardless of background. We are looking for active participation from the community and are looking forward to your engagement!
You can find this and all other community events on the ecosystem calendar. Subscribe to the calendar to stay up to date on future events!
Community Updates (00:00)
In the Community Talk #23, The Graph community had various updates to share. The first one was about Sam Green’s speech at the Coinbase machine learning and blockchain Summit, which was highly recommended to check out. Next, The Graph’s Q1 2023 Quarterly Participant Update is available and had seen a good turnout of main contributors.
New episodes from the GRT IQ podcast were also mentioned, featuring interviews with various advocates and members of The Graph community, including Lorena Fabris, who supports the Spanish speaking community, Kyle Larue, who has launched community initiatives and educational content, Denham Preen, co-founder of Float Capital, and Elissa Shevinsky, a cybersecurity expert and author.
Another highlight was Episode 40 of the dapps to something podcast, which took a deep dive into The Graph with Brunel. Furthermore, the community talked about their monthly update on the forum and open job positions within the Graph’s ecosystem.
Finally, they shared a special request from Edge & Node, who need an experienced Rust Engineer. The various community updates reflect a growing and vibrant ecosystem for The Graph, with a wide range of contributions and activities.
Graphcast Explained 2.0 (04:26)
In this segment, Petko from GraphOps introduced Graphcast, a proposed gossip network for The Graph. Using the analogy of a plumber’s reviews and certifications as a real-world equivalent, Petko explained that Graphcast would function as a decentralized network for exchanging information in The Graph ecosystem. Graphcast can help ensure authenticity and trust by avoiding reliance on central authorities and subjective reviews.
Graphcast is not just a gossip network but also a domain-specific superset of a gossip network, initially for Indexers with planned support for subgraph developers. It aims to enable automated and free information exchange among participants. The first application built on top of Graphcast is the POI (Proof of Indexing) radio.
The Graphcast network includes participants sending and receiving messages. The Graphcast SDK (Software Development Kit) enables developers to build applications that leverage Graphcast, known as radios.
In software development, a Software Development Kit (SDK) is a collection of software tools and libraries that developers use to create applications for specific platforms or frameworks. An SDK provides a set of pre-built functions or routines, which the developer can use directly, avoiding the need to write code from scratch. It serves as a structured set of tools and resources to assist developers in creating efficient and functional applications within a shorter time frame.
POI radio, the first application, helps with data determinism and network consensus by transmitting and comparing indexers’ proof of indexing.
Petko also explained the link between the Graphcast network and blockchain. A smart contract serves as a registry to connect a user’s Graphcast identifier with their on-chain wallet. This contract is the only direct connection between the Graphcast network and the blockchain, enabling verification of a user’s identity when they send messages. Each radio then ascertains the correctness of the data that a participant sends.
SG Hack (16:22)
Mack from Graphica shared exciting insights about the recent Graphica hackathon, which focused on subgraphs. The Hackathon, called SG Hack, was organized to support, motivate, and award students attending master classes, and prospective subgraph builders. To boost their learning experience, a mini hackathon was initiated, specifically targeting the creation of subgraphs. This initiative was also a way to shine a spotlight on certain teams in the ecosystem that may not typically receive a lot of attention.
The hackathon offered over $1,000 worth of bounties and included extra bounties from Dapplooker. One of the major goals was to challenge developers to create production-ready subgraphs, something that developers often don’t get a chance to do. The Hackathon was seen as a contribution to the decentralization movement, encouraging the development of effective subgraphs. The teams who participated in the hackathon were recognized, with some first-time subgraph builders joining the ranks of more experienced developers.
The submissions were judged based on the completeness of the subgraph, implementation of all event handlers and call handlers, accurate data capturing, code quality, reusability of functions, implementation of entities in the schema, and adherence to the given specifications.
As a result of the hackathon, three new subgraphs are already deployed or about to be deployed on the decentralized network, and efforts are underway to prepare the Lens Protocol subgraph for deployment. This successful event has paved the way for substantial contributions to the decentralized network.
Araujo’s Graph Client Tutorial (25:11)
In Araujo’s tutorial, he provides a comprehensive guide to using The Graph Client, an important tool in the broader Graph Ecosystem used to fetch and interact with data from various subgraphs in the network. As a Graph Advocate, Araujo shares his expertise, focusing on how developers can leverage this tool to extract and manipulate data from the blockchain and other decentralized networks using GraphQL.
Araujo’s tutorial begins by explaining the setup process for The Graph Client, emphasizing the prerequisites such as having Node.js and Yarn installed on one’s computer, along with a basic understanding of JavaScript and React. He discusses how to install the necessary packages and guides users through setting up a new React project.
Araujo continues by detailing how to create an instance of the Apollo Client, a popular tool used to manage data with GraphQL, and how to configure it with The Graph API. This step is essential for users to be able to start interacting with the data on The Graph.
Next, he moves on to explain how to write GraphQL queries to fetch data from subgraphs. The tutorial elaborates on the structure and syntax of these queries and provides examples of how they can be used to extract specific pieces of data.
The tutorial then delves into how to use the data fetched from these queries within a React application. He gives an example of a simple React component that uses the Apollo Client’s hooks to execute a query and display the data it returns.
Towards the end, Araujo goes into more advanced topics such as using the Apollo Client’s caching mechanisms to optimize data fetching performance and how to write and execute mutations, a GraphQL feature that allows users to modify data in the subgraph.
Overall, Araujo’s tutorial provides a solid introduction to The Graph Client and how it can be used to interact with the rich data available in The Graph network. It is a valuable resource for developers looking to explore the world of decentralized data using GraphQL.
The One Minute Graph Series (30:45)
Nestor Bonilla, a Graph Advocate, is sharing a new educational project that he has been working on called the The Graph Mini-Series. Collaborating with Celo, he’s developed a three-part video tutorial series that walks viewers through the process of building a subgraph. The series, hosted on the Celo YouTube channel, is intended to be an easy-to-understand guide that people can follow.
In the first video, viewers learn how to set up a smart contract and initiate the creation of a decentralized subgraph. The second part is a collaboration with Simon, where they expand on the initial subgraph and deploy it. Finally, the third video guides users on how to build a mobile web application that can read the subgraph from their decentralized app (dApp).
The series has been well received, with over 500 views in the month since it was released. This positive reception has led Nestor to consider developing another series, and he expressed his willingness to collaborate with more people from the community in creating new educational content. He briefly hinted at a new upcoming series about The Graph, though details are yet to be revealed.
Nestor Bonilla’s efforts in the Graph community are aimed at making The Graph’s technologies more accessible and comprehensible to developers and community members, further fostering knowledge sharing within the crypto and web3 space.
Stay Tuned!
Join us next month for Community Talk #24!
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