How does Weaviate handle cross-references between collections?

Weaviate supports cross-references, which are typed pointers from one object to another collection's object, similar to foreign keys but without enforced integrity. Queries can follow references to fetch linked data in a single call, enabling graph-like navigation without a separate graph database. Cross-references are useful when your data has relationships like articles and authors or products and categories, and when you want retrieval to surface related objects along with the direct matches. They cost extra query time proportional to reference depth.