book

Contract Testing in Action

Name: Contract Testing in Action
ISBN: 9781633437241

by Lewis Prescott, Marie Cruz

January 2025

Intermediate to advanced

304 pages

7h 56m

English

Manning Publications

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Contract Testing in Action
copyright
contents
foreword
preface
acknowledgments
about this book
Who should read this bookHow this book is organized: A roadmapAbout the codeliveBook discussion forumOther online resources
about the authors
about the cover illustration
Part 1 Introduction to contract testing

1 Introduction to contract testing
1.1 An overview of contract testing1.2 Why contract testing matters1.3 When is contract testing appropriate to use?1.4 How contract testing works on a high level1.4.1 Contract testing from the consumer side1.4.2 Contract testing from the provider side1.5 Contract testing in action1.5.1 Example of a consumer contract test1.5.2 Example of a provider contract testSummary
2 How contract testing fits into wider testing concepts
2.1 Contract testing and other testing types2.1.1 Unit testing2.1.2 Integration testing2.1.3 End-to-end testing2.1.4 The ice cream cone of test automation2.1.5 Contract testing in the test automation pyramid2.2 Does contract testing replace other types of tests?2.3 Benefits of contract testing2.3.1 Cost saving benefits2.3.2 Quality benefits2.3.3 Team benefits2.4 Introducing contract testing to your teams2.4.1 Start with Why2.4.2 Start small and incrementally2.4.3 Communicate benefits and progress visibly2.4.4 Find allies or champions2.5 Challenges with contract testing2.5.1 Contract testing takes time2.5.2 Contract testing requires a mindset shift2.5.3 Lack of buy-in2.5.4 More technical than other testing activities2.5.5 Difficult when there are external teams2.6 A practical guide on introducing contract testing to projects2.6.1 Research what tools to use2.6.2 Identify your consumers and providers2.6.3 Define the contract2.6.4 Write a basic consumer and provider contract test2.6.5 Add contract testing to your CI/CD pipelinesSummary
3 A technical overview of contract testing
3.1 What is a consumer?3.2 What is a provider?3.3 What is a contract?3.4 What is a contract broker?3.5 Consumer-driven contract testing life cycle3.6 Contract testing tools3.6.1 Contract-based tools3.7 Contract Testing Approaches3.7.1 Consumer-driven contract testing3.7.2 Provider-driven contract testing3.8 Communication types supported by contract testing3.8.1 GraphQL3.8.2 Event-driven systemsSummary
Part 2 Consumer-driven contract testing
4 Implementing consumer-driven contract testing for web applications
4.1 Guidelines in writing consumer contract tests4.1.1 The focus of a consumer contract test4.1.2 The importance of using mocks instead of stubs4.1.3 Using loose matchers to avoid high coupling4.1.4 The importance of writing isolated contract tests4.1.5 Using can-i-deploy to verify that you can safely deploy to production4.2 Contract testing tooling setup for the consumer4.2.1 Requirements4.3 Consumer contract tests between a web application and data provider4.3.1 Movies API overview4.3.2 Web application overview4.3.3 Consumer contract4.3.4 Writing the first consumer contract test4.3.5 Other programming languages4.4 Publishing the contract to Pact Broker4.4.1 Committing all changes to GitHubSummary
5 Implementing consumer-driven contract testing for mobile clients
5.1 Pact consumer setup for Android apps5.1.1 Requirements5.1.2 Mobile app implementation5.2 Android consumer test implementation5.3 Android consumer contract generation5.3.1 Pact matchers5.3.2 Pact POST requests5.4 Chapter exerciseSummary
6 Implementing consumer-driven provider contract tests
6.1 Guidelines in writing provider contract tests6.1.1 The focus of a provider contract test6.1.2 Using provider states effectively6.1.3 Using can-i-deploy to verify that you can safely deploy to production6.2 Contract testing tooling setup for the provider6.3 Provider contract tests between a web application and data provider6.3.1 Writing the provider test6.3.2 Introducing provider states6.4 Provider contract tests between a mobile app and data provider6.5 Chapter exerciseSummary
7 Contract testing for GraphQL
7.1 A brief introduction to GraphQL7.2 GraphQL application overview7.2.1 GraphQL server overview7.2.2 Running the GraphQL server7.2.3 Consumer overview7.3 Consumer contract tests between a consumer and GraphQL layer7.3.1 Importing the required dependencies7.3.2 Setting up the mock provider7.3.3 Registering the consumer expectation7.3.4 Verifying the consumer test and generating the contract7.3.5 Publishing the contract to Pact Broker7.4 Provider contract tests between a consumer and GraphQL layer7.5 Chapter exerciseSummary
8 Contract testing for event-driven architecture
8.1 Introduction to asynchronous API testing8.2 Pact consumer message setup with Kafka8.2.1 Requirements8.3 Kafka consumer implementation8.4 Event handler consumer test implementation8.5 Event consumer contract generation8.6 Kafka producer implementation8.7 Event producer test implementationSummary
9 Storing, hosting, and securing the contracts
9.1 Why we need Pact Broker9.1.1 Pact Broker core features9.2 Pact Broker options9.3 SaaS Pact Broker (PactFlow)9.3.1 Setting up PactFlow9.3.2 PactFlow API token9.3.3 PactFlow user management9.3.4 Other PactFlow features9.4 Self-hosted Pact Broker9.4.1 Pact Broker with Docker9.4.2 Kubernetes Pact Broker9.5 SaaS vs. self-hosted Pact BrokerSummary
10 Setting up contract testing in a CI/CD pipeline
10.1 Basic CI/CD setup for the consumer and provider10.1.1 Setting up GitHub Actions10.1.2 Example configuration for other CI/CD platforms10.2 Advanced features to improve the CI/CD setup10.2.1 Configuring consumer and provider versions10.2.2 Configuring branches10.2.3 Creating environments10.2.4 Recording deployments and/or releases10.2.5 Using the can-i-deploy tool10.3 Chapter exercises10.4 Webhooks10.4.1 Creating the Pact webhook10.4.2 Creating a different GitHub workflow for provider verification10.4.3 Updating provider options10.4.4 Retries for can-i-deploy10.4.5 Testing the webhookSummary
Part 3 Provider-driven contract testing
11 Implementing provider-driven contract testing
11.1 Introduction to provider-driven contract testing11.1.1 Why was PDCT introduced?11.1.2 How PDCT addresses the drawbacks of CDCT11.1.3 Drawbacks with PDCT11.2 Implementing consumer test adapters11.2.1 Cypress consumer adapter11.2.2 WireMock consumer adapter11.2.3 Publish consumer contracts11.3 Implementing provider tests with API testing tools11.3.1 Postman and OpenAPI example11.3.2 Dredd and OpenAPI example11.3.3 Publish provider API specification and test results11.3.4 Checking consumer contractsSummary
12 Moving integration tests to contract tests
12.1 When to use integration tests over contract tests12.2 Identifying suitable integration tests to migrate12.3 Refactoring integration tests to contract tests12.4 Refactoring end-to-end tests to contract testsSummary
appendix A Tool comparisons
A.1 Contract-based toolsA.1.1 PactA.1.2 Pact BrokerA.1.3 PactFlowA.1.4 Pact CLIA.1.5 Pact PluginsA.1.6 Swagger Mock ValidatorA.1.7 Spring Cloud ContractA.1.8 PostmanA.2 Schema-based toolA.2.1 JSON SchemaA.3 Pact Broker hosting options
appendix B Setting up project requirements for consumer contract testing (web applications)
B.1 Installing nodeB.2 Installing pact-jsB.3 Forking the projectB.4 Downloading the projectB.5 Installing Visual Studio Code
appendix C Answers to chapter exercises
C.1 Answers to the chapter 5 exerciseC.2 Answers to chapter 6 exercisesC.3 Answers to the chapter 7 exerciseC.4 Answers to chapter 10 exercises
index

Content preview from Contract Testing in Action

2 How contract testing fits into wider testing concepts

This chapter covers

Contract testing and other testing types
Whether contract testing can replace other types of tests
Benefits of contract testing
Introducing contract testing to your teams
Challenges with contract testing
Practical guidance on introducing contract testing to projects

Contract testing is unique when compared to other testing types because it requires developing two sets of tests to fully reap the benefits. A consumer test can exist without a provider test, but it won’t be useful. You can initiate the contract testing process by writing either a consumer test or a provider test individually, but it’s important to note that these individual tests alone don’t give you ...

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Contract Testing in Action

by Lewis Prescott, Marie Cruz