Sane pattern for consumer-driven contracts with Pact broker

Question

We have 5 consumers and 2 providers. Provider verification runs on every provider PR and takes forever. Want to move to can-i-deploy + tags but scared of blocking releases. What is your Pact broker flow that actually holds up?

Aiko Tanaka · Accepted Answer

What worked for us with 6 consumers: version pacts with the git SHA, tag with the branch, and gate merges with pact-broker can-i-deploy. Provider verification runs against the "main" tag on every provider PR - fast, deterministic. Consumers only trigger provider verification when their pact actually changes.

# consumer publish
pact-broker publish ./pacts \
  --consumer-app-version=$GIT_SHA \
  --tag=$BRANCH \
  --broker-base-url=$PACT_BROKER_URL

# provider verify (only "main"-tagged pacts, fast path)
mvn verify -Dpact.verifier.publishResults=true \
  -Dpactbroker.tags=main

# release gate
pact-broker can-i-deploy \
  --pacticipant=checkout-web \
  --version=$GIT_SHA \
  --to-environment=production

Sane pattern for consumer-driven contracts with Pact broker

1 answer