⛵ Argo

Compatible with GraphQL October 2021 Edition. View Argo on GitHub.

Argo is a compact and compressible binary serialization format for GraphQL. It aims to:

Minimize end-to-end latency of GraphQL responses
- Including serialization, transport, and deserialization
Minimize bytes on the wire, with and without external compression
Be easy to implement

Argo:

Takes the place of JSON in GraphQL responses
Usually meets the needs of mobile clients (and server clients) better than web clients
Works best with code generation, but also works well with interpretation
Does not currently support GraphQL Input types

Compressed Argo responses are typically 5%-40% smaller than corresponding compressed JSON responses.

Uncompressed Argo responses are typically 50%-80% smaller than corresponding JSON responses.

WhatsApp is the largest user of Argo. Compressed WhatsApp Argo payloads are 25% smaller than JSON, and 5% smaller than WhatsApp’s purpose-built binary protocol (WAP).

Specification

Argo has a formal specification:

Reference implementation

argo-js is a reference implementation of Argo in TypeScript, and can be found in this repository. It is distributed on NPM under the name argo-graphql.

3rd party implementations

These open-source implementations are maintained separately:

Go: argo-go from Beeper
Erlang: erlang-argo from WhatsApp

Conference talks

Argo: Designing a Compact and Compressible Binary Serialization Format for GraphQL at GraphQLConf 2023 by Mike Solomon.
An Alternative to JSON Responses: Argo in WhatsApp at GraphQLConf 2026 by Kevin Gorham, Meta.

Authors and contributors

Argo was created and authored by Mike Solomon.

A big Thank You to these fine folks who have contributed on GitHub!