contract-testing

Discovery Questions

1. Architecture: Microservices, monolith with separate consumers (mobile/SPA), or BFF pattern? Contract testing matters most when teams deploy independently.
2. Who owns the contract? Consumer-driven (consumers define what they need) or provider-driven (provider publishes a spec)? Most teams benefit from consumer-driven.
3. API versioning strategy: URL-based (/v1/, /v2/), header-based, or none? Contracts must account for version negotiations.
4. How many consumer-provider pairs? Start with the highest-traffic or most-fragile integration. Do not try to contract-test everything at once.
5. Existing API specs: Is there an OpenAPI/Swagger spec? If yes, consider schema-first contracts as a starting point.
6. Check .agents/qa-project-context.md first. Respect existing API conventions and testing infrastructure.

Core Principles