阅读中文版本

Contract Test Adoption Workflow

Introduce consumer-driven contracts so service changes are validated against real consumer expectations.

Overview

Adopt contract testing to catch breaking changes before integration.

This workflow is reusable across teams and environments; adapt the commands to your tooling while keeping the sequence and checkpoints intact.

Environment and prerequisites

• A contract testing tool
• Producer and consumer services
• CI access for both sides

Procedure

1. Identify the critical interactions

Choose the service interactions where breakage is most costly.

Expected state: A focused set of contracts is selected.

2. Write consumer expectations

Have consumers define the parts of the API they depend on.

Expected state: Contracts express real consumer needs.

3. Verify producers against contracts

Run producer tests that assert they satisfy all consumer contracts in CI.

Expected state: Producers cannot merge breaking changes.

4. Publish and version contracts

Publish contracts to a broker and version them as consumers evolve.

Expected state: Both sides track compatible versions.

# verify a producer against consumer contracts
pact-verifier --provider api --pact-broker https://broker.example.com

Verification

Confirm a producer change that violates a consumer contract fails CI and passes once compatible.

Decision points

Contract tests or full integration tests?

• Contract tests for interfaces
• Integration tests everywhere

Recommendation: Use contracts for interface stability and integration tests where behaviour matters.

All consumers or critical ones?

• Start with critical consumers
• Every consumer at once

Recommendation: Start with the most critical consumers to show value quickly.

Common failures

• No contracts means breakage is found in production.
• Contracts that over-specify become brittle.
• Unversioned contracts cannot evolve.