Elixir is a dynamic, functional language for building scalable and maintainable applications. Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed, and fault-tolerant systems. Elixir is successfully used in web development, embedded software, data ingestion, and multimedia processing, across a wide range of industries. All Elixir code runs inside lightweight threads of execution (called processes) that are isolated and exchange information via messages. Due to their lightweight nature, it is not uncommon to have hundreds of thousands of processes running concurrently in the same machine. Isolation allows processes to be garbage collected independently, reducing system-wide pauses, and using all machine resources as efficiently as possible (vertical scaling). Processes are also able to communicate with other processes running on different machines in the same network.

Absinthe is the GraphQL toolkit for Elixir, an implementation of the GraphQL specification built to suit the language's capabilities and idiomatic style. If you're new to GraphQL, we suggest you read up a bit on GraphQL's foundational principles before you dive into Absinthe. Absinthe's functionality generally falls into two broad areas. Defines the structure of data entities and the relationships between, as well as the available queries, mutations, and subscriptions, using an elegant collection of declarative macros. Absinthe schemas are defined using easy-to-read macros that build and verify their structure at compile-time, preventing runtime errors and increasing performance. The entire query processing pipeline is configurable. Add, swap out, or remove the parser, individual validations, or resolution logic at will, even on a per-document basis. Absinthe includes a number of advanced resolution features.