mock-to-contract

name

mock-to-contract

description

Turn a mock-data React+Relay feature into properly componentized code backed by colocated GraphQL fragments and a clean schema contract for the backend team. Use when the user wants to convert a mocked UI into a backend contract, walk the component hierarchy of a feature, replace mock/hardcoded data with fragments, componentize a page for Relay, fragmentize a feature, spec a feature for the backend team, or build a schema contract from the UI. Triggers on "mock to contract", "turn this mock into a contract", "walk the component hierarchy", "componentize this page", "fragmentize", "spec this feature for the backend", or "schema-ify this feature".

Mock to contract: walk a feature, fragmentize, hand the schema to the backend

This skill takes a mocked-up feature — a React page with hardcoded data and inline JSX — and turns it into the canonical Relay-best-practices shape: small components, each declaring its own colocated GraphQL fragment, all spreading into a single preloaded query at the route boundary, all backed by additions written directly into schema.graphql that double as the contract handed to the backend team.

Use this skill the moment a user mocks up a new page or section and is ready to wire it for real. Do not invoke for one-off fragment additions to an existing well-structured component — use relay-best-practices directly for that.

Companion skills

This skill orchestrates two others; read them once at the start of the walk and refer back as needed.

• relay-best-practices — the rules every fragment, query, and mutation in this walk must follow (inline graphql tags, render-as-you-fetch, never copy Relay data into useState, spread fragments into mutation responses).
• graphql-schema-design — invoked in Review mode as the final step against the schema-extension file the walk produced.

The walk

The pattern is depth-first, leaves-first, with two distinct passes per component: an entry pass on the way down, and an exit pass on the way up. Do not skip either pass.

walk(root)
  enter(root)          # split-check (going down)
  for each child of root:
    walk(child)        # recurse before doing exit work
  exit(root)           # mock-data → fragment (going up)

You only ever decide things about a component once you have seen all of its descendants. Otherwise a split you make at the root can render the subsequent work moot.

Entry pass — when you enter a component

Ask: is this component doing one thing, or is it doing several things glued together?

A component should split if any of the following is true:

• It renders an obvious sub-unit of UI that owns its own data slice (a card footer with avatars + a CTA button is two units, not one)
• It contains a data table or list that is bigger than the rest of the component combined
• It mixes a presentational shell with data-bound content (the shell becomes shared UI; the data-bound part becomes its own widget)
• Two different fragments would naturally live on different parts of the tree if the component were split

If it should split: extract the sub-component into its own file under the same folder, then recurse into it. The new component is now part of the walk. The original component composes it as a child.

If it should not split, move on — recurse into existing children.

Things that are not a reason to split:

• Pure layout helpers used once (a 5-line Row flex helper inside one card). Keep them as inline local functions.
• Repeated 1-2 line presentational fragments — extract only when the repetition crosses three sites.

Exit pass — before you leave a component

Ask: what hardcoded values would have to come from the backend in a real implementation?

A value is "mock data" if it would require a backend round-trip in production:

• An INITIAL_EVENTS array, a CURRENT_USER constant, a list of areas
• Counts derived from local arrays (events.length, the user's RSVP count)
• Image URLs, placeholder names, hardcoded titles
• Anything currently sourced from a data/ or mock* file

A value is not mock data if it is intrinsic to the component:

• Tailwind class names, icon choices, formatting strings
• Local UI state (search query, dialog open, active filter)
• Pure-presentation maps (category → tone+icon for an enum prop)

For every mock value the component reads, introduce a colocated Relay fragment that fetches the corresponding field. Follow relay-best-practices verbatim — the fragment tag must be inlined inside the useFragment(...) call, never hoisted to a module-level const.

Resolving the right type for the fragment

1. Look in the existing server schema first. Read schema.graphql (or whatever the project's relay.config.json schema points at). Try to find a type that semantically matches the entity the component renders.
2. If you find one, use it directly.
3. If you find a partial match — the type exists but does not yet expose the field you need — add the field directly to the type in schema.graphql.
4. If no matching type exists, add the new type directly to schema.graphql.

Field and type quality bar

Every type, field, enum value, input, and payload must carry a description that explains both purpose and business behavior. The schema extension is the contract you hand to the backend team — a description like """The user's name""" is useless; the team needs to know what the field represents in the product, how the UI uses it, and what the null/error semantics are.

# Bad — restates the field name
"""The location."""
location: String!

# Good — names the source, the UI usage, and the edge case
"""
Free-text meeting location (e.g. "Maxwell Food Centre, Stall 10",
"ECP Area C carpark"). Not necessarily geocoded — this is what the host
typed. Rendered as the "location" row on the event card.
"""
location: String!

Use SDL descriptions ("""triple-quoted"""), not # comments. Only docstrings survive introspection and end up in the backend team's tooling.

Type naming when introducing

Follow the conventions in graphql-schema-design/references/naming.md: PascalCase types, camelCase fields, SCREAMING_SNAKE enums, Input/Payload suffixes for mutation types, unique-per-context connection types (AreaEventConnection, not a shared EventConnection).

Connections, not lists

Any list that could grow unbounded over the lifetime of the API must be a Relay connection, not a [T!]!. This is non-negotiable per graphql-schema-design/references/connections.md. Counts that go alongside the list (upcomingEventCount, attendingCount, totalRsvps) belong on the connection as totalCount, not as separate scalar fields.

Mutations: spec the contract

If the component triggers a write (an RSVP button, a "post" form), spec the mutation in the schema extension even if you cannot wire useMutation yet (client-extension Mutation roots are not supported by the current Relay compiler). The contract must include:

• Unique Input and Payload per mutation
• Stage 6a errors: event: Event (nullable) + errors: [<Mutation>Error!]
• An Error interface + per-mutation error union + concrete error types with case-specific fields (EventAtCapacityError { capacity: Int! })
• Symmetric counterparts (postEvent ⇒ also cancelEvent, attendEvent ⇒ also leaveEvent)

See graphql-schema-design/references/errors.md and mutations.md.

Add the mutation, its Input, Payload, and error types directly to schema.graphql. When the component's useMutation cannot be wired yet (e.g. no resolver behind it), leave the onClick handler as a // TODO that names the mutation it will call. Do not invent local state to fake mutation behavior.

After the walk

1. Update the route-level component to declare a usePreloadedQuery that spreads every child fragment in the page.
2. Wire useQueryLoader at the app shell so the query starts loading before the route renders.
3. Run npm run relay (or the project's equivalent script — check package.json). Fix every error before moving on.
4. Run npx tsc -b. Fix every error.
5. Delete the now-unused mock data files (src/data/<feature>.ts, mockData.ts, etc.). Anything that was only a stand-in for the backend must be gone before the contract is handed off.

Mandatory review step

After the walk completes and compilation is green, invoke the graphql-schema-design skill in Review mode against schema.graphql:

/graphql-schema-design review @schema.graphql

Treat the resulting findings as gate items:

• Issues (must fix): apply the recommended changes, re-run the compiler and tsc, then come back for re-review of the changed area.
• Warnings (acknowledge): present each one to the user with the trade-off explicit. If the user accepts the trade-off, document the decision in schema.graphql as a # Decision: … comment on the affected type. Do not silently dismiss warnings.
• Good: leave alone — the review confirms patterns to keep.

Iterate walk → review → apply → re-review until the only remaining items are warnings the user has explicitly accepted.

Hard rules — non-negotiables

• Walk leaves-first, both passes. A top-down pass produces churn because splits at the root reshape children you already touched.
• One fragment per component, declared inline at the useFragment call site. Module-level const FooFragment = graphql\…`` is forbidden.
• Sibling fragments selecting the same field must use the same arguments. Otherwise the parent query has a conflict. If two consumers genuinely need different args, alias one of them.
• Every new schema element gets a description. No exceptions, no # comments as a substitute.
• Mock data files are deleted, not left as fallbacks. If the component compiled before with mocks and after with fragments, the mock source must be unreferenced. Run grep -r mockData src/ to verify.
• Run the compiler centrally, never in parallel agents. Concurrent relay-compiler runs race on artifact files. If you delegate widget conversion to parallel agents, run the compiler yourself after they finish — never inside the agent prompts.
• The review step is not optional. Even if the walk feels clean, the schema-design skill catches connection-vs-list mistakes, missing Stage 6a errors, generic naming traps, and unbounded lists every time.

Walking an example feature

A typical events page tree:

EventsView                    (route — preloaded query)
├── PageHeader                (shared, no data)
├── StatTile × 3              (shared, no data)
├── filter bar                (inline — local UI state)
├── EventCard × N             (per-event fragment)
│   ├── EventCategoryPill     (enum prop, no fragment)
│   ├── Row (helper)          (inline, no extraction)
│   ├── EventAttendeesPreview (split out — fragment on Event)
│   └── AttendButton          (split out — fragment + mutation)
└── CreateEventDialog         (fragment on Query for areas; mutation for post)

Walking it:

1. EventCategoryPill enter→exit: presentational, no split, no fragment.
2. Row enter→exit: layout helper, leave inline.
3. Inside EventCard, identify two split candidates: EventAttendeesPreview (avatar stack + host text) and AttendButton (RSVP toggle). Extract both as siblings, then recurse into them.
4. EventAttendeesPreview exit: needs host { name } and an attendee list → declare EventAttendeesPreview_event on Event selecting attendees(first: 4) { nodes { id name initials } totalCount }.
5. AttendButton exit: needs id, viewerIsAttending, capacity, and the attendee count → declare AttendButton_event on Event selecting the same attendees(first: 4) { totalCount } so the two sibling fragments merge.
6. EventCard exit: declares its own fragment (title, description, category, startsAt, durationMinutes, location, area { name }, attendees(first: 4) { totalCount }) and spreads ...EventAttendeesPreview_event and ...AttendButton_event.
7. CreateEventDialog exit: drops the hardcoded area list, declares CreateEventDialog_query on Query selecting areas { name }.
8. EventsView exit: declares EventsViewQuery($name: String!) that selects areaByName(name: $name) { name events(first: 50) { totalCount nodes { id ... ...EventCard_event } } } and viewer { ... }, plus ...CreateEventDialog_query. Wires useQueryLoader in App.
9. Compile + tsc clean.
10. Review: run /graphql-schema-design review @schema.graphql. Apply issues (unbounded lists → connections, Stage 6a on mutations, symmetric mutations, drop probe fields). Reconcile warnings with the user. Re-compile, done.