GraphQLConf 2026

The GraphQL community has come together to standardize how distributed systems can be built with GraphQL as an orchestrator.

In this talk, I will outline our vision for GraphQL as an orchestration layer and explain how the emerging Composite Schema specification addresses the challenges of composing distributed graphs. We’ll review the progress made since the last GraphQLConf within the Composite Schema Working Group and take a look at early RFCs and experimental prototypes.

The specification builds on the strongest ideas from existing federation approaches in the ecosystem, distilling them into a vendor-neutral standard. Its goal is to enable interoperability — allowing vendors, platform teams, and open-source projects to implement the specification, or parts of it, in a way that integrates seamlessly across tools and ecosystems.

This session is a community update on the work happening under the GraphQL Foundation to standardize Federation: the problems we are solving, the principles guiding the design, and what comes next.