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title: Graph Node
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Operating a Gateway does not have to be a one-way relationship with The Graph Network. The most impactful way a Gateway Operator gives back is by strengthening the infrastructure the whole network runs on, and Graph Node is at the center of that infrastructure.

## What is Graph Node?

[Graph Node](https://github.com/graphprotocol/graph-node/) is the component of the Indexer stack that indexes Subgraphs and makes the resulting data available to query through a GraphQL API. Graph Node reads a Subgraph's manifest, processes the chain data the Subgraph describes, and stores the result so it can be served. Every Indexer on The Graph Network runs Graph Node, so its correctness and performance directly determine the quality of the data a Gateway routes to. When a Gateway measures an Indexer's freshness and latency, it is, in large part, measuring that Indexer's Graph Node.

## How Gateways Can Contribute to Graph Node

There are several ways operating a Gateway connects back to Graph Node, in increasing order of investment.

- **Run Graph Node as an Indexer:** If an Operator runs their own indexing (for staging or enterprise SLAs, per [Gateway Indexing Approaches](/gateways/subgraphs/consumer-side/indexing-approaches/)), doing it as an Indexer on The Graph Network means running Graph Node and contributing that indexing capacity to the network rather than walling it off. This is the Foundation's preferred approach and the most direct contribution.
- **Surface real-world signal:** A Gateway sits on a large stream of live query traffic and QoS data (see [Tracking QoS](/gateways/subgraphs/supply-side/tracking-qos/)). That data surfaces where Graph Node performs well and where it struggles: slow query shapes, freshness gaps on particular chains, deployments that are expensive to serve. Feeding those observations back to the teams who maintain Graph Node helps prioritize improvements that benefit every Indexer.
- **Contribute directly to Graph Node codebase:** Graph Node is open source. Gateway Operators with the engineering capacity can contribute fixes, performance improvements, and features, especially ones motivated by problems they hit while serving real traffic. Improvements to Graph Node raise the quality floor for the whole network, which in turn improves what every Gateway can serve.

## Why This Matters

A Gateway's product quality is ultimately bounded by the quality of the data the network can produce, and that is bounded by Graph Node. Contributing to Graph Node, whether by running it as a network Indexer, feeding back real-world signal, or improving the software directly, is therefore not charity; it raises the ceiling on what an Operator's own Gateway can deliver. The operators who invest here strengthen the network they depend on.
