July 11, 2026
Graph drama in 600 lines
Biff.graph: structure your Clojure codebase as a queryable graph
Tiny coding tool sparks big reactions, from serious praise to "wait, is this email software?"
TLDR: biff.graph is a new lightweight tool meant to make app code easier to organize and debug without as much complexity as older options. Commenters split between respectful Pathom evangelism and joking that the name sounds like an email-charting app, giving the launch both credibility and comedy.
A small new coding library called biff.graph just strutted onto the scene with a very specific promise: make a growing app easier to understand by letting developers ask for data in one simple shape, whether it comes from the database or is calculated on the fly. In plain English, it’s trying to turn a messy codebase into something more organized and less headache-inducing. The creator pitches it as a lighter, easier-to-grasp cousin of Pathom, a more established tool in the same space, with the big selling point being: fewer moving parts, less mystery, and a codebase small enough to actually read without needing emotional support.
But the real entertainment is in the community reaction. One camp immediately went full “put some respect on Pathom’s name”, with adamfeldman dropping YouTube talks from Pathom’s creator like required viewing for anyone entering the chat. That gave the whole thread a subtle “nice new tool, but know the lore” energy. Then came the comic relief: tosti looked at the name and basically said it sounds like software for charting incoming email, which is exactly the kind of comment that derails a technical discussion in the best possible way. Suddenly, the launch had two parallel storylines: one about making complex apps simpler, and another about whether the branding accidentally screams inbox analytics startup. In other words, classic internet energy: part thoughtful debate, part roast session.
Key Points
- •biff.graph is a Clojure library that lets developers query database-backed and derived application data as one unified graph.
- •The library is positioned as a lightweight subset implementation of Pathom, intended to be easier to understand.
- •Unlike Pathom, biff.graph has no query planning step, which may reduce efficiency for some queries, but it supports batch resolvers and caching.
- •The project is published as com.biffweb/graph version 2.0.0-rc7 and remains a release candidate until other Biff 2 libraries are released.
- •The article demonstrates resolvers, EQL/Datomic-style query shapes, optional attributes, and joins through a sample that combines stored post data with a derived cleaned title.