Contract Testing
Contract testing is a software testing methodology that verifies the interactions between different services or components in a distributed system, ensuring they adhere to a shared 'contract' that defines expected requests and responses. It focuses on testing the communication interfaces (e.g., APIs) rather than the internal logic of each service, helping to detect integration issues early in development. This approach is particularly useful in microservices architectures where services are developed and deployed independently.
Developers should use contract testing when building or maintaining distributed systems, especially microservices, to prevent integration failures and reduce the need for extensive end-to-end testing. It is valuable in scenarios where multiple teams work on different services concurrently, as it allows them to evolve their services independently while ensuring compatibility. Contract testing also supports continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines by providing fast, reliable feedback on service interactions.