BGP hijacks, route leaks and routing changes can critically affect the security, reliability and performance of our networks. In this presentation, we show how we can combine modern APIs and query languages like GraphQL with real-time streaming control-plane data ingestion, processing and storage in order to detect routing events in seconds. This is enabled by tracking the current state of the network’s BGP resources, such as prefixes and routes, and using live queries and subscriptions to get non-policy compliant, and thus alertable/actionable, data. We present the basic concepts of GraphQL in the context of BGP, forming a custom and expressive BGPQL query language. We explain the key mechanisms of a well-known open source GraphQL middleware named Hasura GrapgQL engine, which eases the process of DB schema to GraphQL mapping. Finally, we analyze some relevant use cases implemented in the context of a commercial BGP security and monitoring platform, focusing on UIs, API access, metric collection and alert generation.