Microservices Integration Done Right Using Contract-Driven Development

Published by: InfoQ
Author: Naresh Jain

Integration testing has become the largest hurdle impacting the independent development and deployment of microservices which is impacting the quality, time-to-market, predictability of delivery and ultimately business agility
We need an alternate approach to help identify compatibility issues between microservices early in the development cycle to reduce the dependence on integration testing
Adopting API specifications such as OpenAPI or AsyncAPI is a step in the right direction to clearly communicate the API signature to avoid communication gaps. Why stop there when you can get a lot more value from them?
Contract Driven Development helps us leverage API specifications as executable contracts using Specmatic to shift left the identification of compatibility issues thereby eliminating / reducing the need for integration tests
Specmatic has a #NOCODE approach that holds both consumer and provider teams accountable to commonly agreed API specification by emulating the provider for the consumers through “Smart Mocks” and emulating the consumer for the provider through “Contract as Test”