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What The Graph actually indexes, who does the work, and where the money moves. No prior knowledge of the protocol assumed.

6 entries 61 min to read through beginner
01

The problem

  1. The problem The Graph solves A blockchain is a ledger, not a database. Answering an ordinary product question against one directly is slow, and that gap is the whole reason this protocol exists. 10 min
  2. Straight answers to the common questions The questions newcomers actually ask, answered without hedging, with a pointer to the entry that does the work properly. 9 min
02

The roles

  1. The roles, and the loop that pays for them Four roles, two sources of money, and one loop. Once you can draw the loop from memory, most of the protocol stops being surprising. 12 min
03

The services

  1. Subgraphs, Substreams, Firehose and the Token API Four names people use interchangeably and should not. Two are data services you consume, one is the extraction layer underneath, and one is a hosted convenience. 12 min
  2. Where GRT lives now The protocol runs on Arbitrum One. A great deal of writing about The Graph still assumes it runs on Ethereum mainnet, and that writing will cost you money. 8 min
04

Practicum

  1. Seeing it on the real network Prove to yourself that the shape of the protocol has stuck, then pick the role you actually came here for. 10 min

Elsewhere

This collection explains why. Two other places carry the rest.

The procedure Official getting started Exact steps, flags and configuration, maintained by the people who ship the code. This site does not duplicate them and never will.