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Using the Platform BOM

Using the Platform Bill of Materials (BOM)

Both Gradle1 and Maven2 define a mechanism that developers can leverage to align the versions of dependencies that belong to the same framework, or an umbrella of dependencies that need to be aligned to work well together. Using them will prevent version conflicts and aide you figure out which dependency versions work well with each other.

Let's go through a scenario, and assume you are using both the graphql-dgs-spring-boot-starter and the graphql-dgs-subscriptions-websockets-autoconfigure. Without using the platform/BOM you will have to define a version for each; unless the versions are explicitly maintained there is a chance that in the future they diverge. Manually aligning the versions of the dependencies becomes harder if your have a multi-module project where each module is using different dependencies of the DGS Framework, for example, the graphql-dgs-client. If you are using the platform/BOM you define the version of the DGS Framework in one place only, it will make sure that all other DGS Framework dependencies are using the same version.

In the case of the DGS Framework we have two different BOM definitions, the graphql-dgs-platform-dependencies and the graphql-dgs-platform. The latter only defines version alignment for the DGS modules while the first also defines versions for the dependencies of the DGS framework, such as Spring, Jackson, and Kotlin.

Using the Platform/BOM

Warning

If you are using the Spring Boot Dependency Management Plugin, please use the following syntax, such that the DGS BOM provides the version of graphql-java, and other managed dependencies. 

dependencyManagement {
    imports {
        // We need to define the DGS BOM as follows such that the
        // io.spring.dependency-management plugin respects the versions expressed in the DGS BOM, e.g. graphql-java
        mavenBom("com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-platform-dependencies:latest.release")
    }
}

If the DGS BOM is not expressed in the dependencyManagement block as an imported Maven BOM, the Spring Boot Dependency Management Plugin will force the graphql-java version to a lower version. This will cause conflicts with what the DGS framework, and other artifacts such as the federation library, expect.

Let's go through an example and assume that we want to use the DGS Framework 3.10.2...

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    //DGS BOM/platform dependency. This is the only place you set version of DGS
    implementation(platform('com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-platform-dependencies:3.10.2'))

    //DGS dependencies. We don't have to specify a version here!
    implementation 'com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-spring-boot-starter'
    implementation 'com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-subscriptions-websockets-autoconfigure'

    //Additional Jackson dependency. We don't need to specify a version, because Jackson is part of the BOM/platform definition.
    implementation 'com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype:jackson-datatype-joda'

    //Other dependencies...
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    //DGS BOM/platform dependency. This is the only place you set version of DGS
    implementation(platform("com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-platform-dependencies:3.10.2"))

    //DGS dependencies. We don't have to specify a version here!
    implementation("com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-spring-boot-starter")
    implementation("com.netflix.graphql.dgs:graphql-dgs-subscriptions-websockets-autoconfigure")

    //Additional Jackson dependency. We don't need to specify a version, because Jackson is part of the BOM/platform definition.
    implementation("com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype:jackson-datatype-joda")

    //Other dependencies...
}

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>com.netflix.graphql.dgs</groupId>
        <artifactId>graphql-dgs-platform-dependencies</artifactId>
        <!-- The DGS BOM/platform dependency. This is the only place you set version of DGS -->
        <version>3.10.2</version>
        <type>pom</type>
        <scope>import</scope>
      </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
    <!-- DGS dependencies. We don't have to specify a version here! -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.netflix.graphql.dgs</groupId>
        <artifactId>graphql-dgs-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.netflix.graphql.dgs</groupId>
        <artifactId>graphql-dgs-subscriptions-websockets-autoconfigure</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- Additional Jackson dependency. We don't need to specify a version, because Jackson is part of the BOM/platform definition. -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-datatype-joda</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- Other dependencies -->
</dependencies>

Notice that the version is only specified on the platform dependency, and not on the graphql-dgs-spring-boot-starter and graphql-dgs-subscriptions-websockets-autoconfigure. The BOM will make sure that all DGS dependencies are aligned, in other words, using the same version. In addition, since we are using the graphql-dgs-platform-dependencies, we can use the DGS chosen version of some dependencies as well, such as Jackson.

Note

Versions in the platform are recommendations. The versions can be overridden by the user, or by other platforms you might be using.

  1. Gradle supports this via the Java Platform, checkout the section that describes how to consume a Java platform. ↩

  2. Maven supports this via the BOM. Note that the BOM will be consumed via the dependencyManagement block. ↩