Apollo Lambda GraphQL API Example

Note: graphql is held at ^16.14.2 (not the current 17.x major) because @apollo/server's latest release (5.5.1) still declares a peerDependencies constraint of graphql: ^16.11.0. Bump this once @apollo/server adds graphql 17 support.

Note: TypeScript is intentionally held at 5.x — the TypeScript 7 native compiler isn't yet supported by the surrounding ecosystem tooling (checked 2026-07-20).

This example demonstrates how to setup a lambda graphql API with apollo

• I used apiKeys to secure the endpoints but you can add custom authorizers

Use Cases

• Small graphql API
• Creating a temporary lambda API that can easily be converted to standard GraphQL API

Setup

• Optionally set the following environment variables before deploying:

  • APOLLO_LAMBDA_KEY - value for the x-api-key header (defaults to your-api-key-that-is-at-least-characters-long if unset)
  • NODE_ENV - set to production to disable GraphQL introspection

• sls deploy

Usage

• To test it locally with serverless-offline by running: npm run dev
• set x-api-key header with key your-api-key-that-is-at-least-characters-long

Future

• Add support for subscription with Redis