# 9 Lessons From a Year of Apollo Federation

DevFeed: [9 Lessons From a Year of Apollo Federation](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/9-lessons-from-a-year-of-apollo-federation-23116.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.apollographql.com/blog/9-lessons-from-a-year-of-apollo-federation>)

Author: Kyle Schrade

Published: 2020-11-06T11:23:47Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Apollo Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/apollo-blog.md>)

Topics: [GraphQL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/graphql.md>), [API](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/api.md>), [schema design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/schema-design.md>), [Documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/documentation.md>), [Caching](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/caching.md>)

Tags: [api](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api.md>), [backend](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/backend.md>), [caching](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/caching.md>), [documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/documentation.md>), [graphql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/graphql.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [schema-design](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/schema-design.md>)

## AI overview

StockX shares nine lessons from running a federated GraphQL implementation with Apollo Federation in production for more than a year. The article covers incremental schema design, schema documentation, performance improvements, payload-size reduction, and related infrastructure challenges.

## Source excerpt

At StockX, we've been running a federated GraphQL implementation for over a year now. Like any distributed system, the rewards it comes with also comes with challenges to overcome. Overall, we've had a positive experience serving our APIs with GraphQL and Apollo Federation. In this post, I'd like to highlight some of the most important lessons we've learned over the past year running a federated graph in production. 1. Build your schema as you go, don't try to do it all at once.