Getting Started with PactFlow

did you know

PactFlow makes testing and deploying microservices at scale, simple and worry free for thousands of developers and testers around the world.

Utilising the Pact framework, create consumer and provider mocks in-platform or use a range of BYO tools to do so through the Bi-Directional Contract Testing feature

Create an account

If you don’t already have a PactFlow account (have not created one or have not been invited to someone else’s account) get started with our free Starter Plan

Learn about contract testing

Videos

New to contract testing? Watch this introductory level video series on contract-testing to understand what it's all about.

Workshops

See contract testing in action by completing short and easy in-browser tutorials.

And when you’re ready to dive deeper, enroll in PactFlow University to dive deeper into the basics of contract testing through to advanced use cases including a CI/CD integration to help you scale

Essential reading

Here are some key resources to help you on your way:

How Pact works
Bi-Directional Contracts Guide
The Pact Broker overview
Versioning in the Pact Broker
General Pact documentation
You can find documentation on all the PactFlow screens under PactFlow User Interface.

Getting help

We want to see you succeed with your contract testing journey. Here’s some ways you can get extra support and have your questions answered:

Pact Slack

We also have a Slack workspace where you can chat with other community members and get general support with contract testing or PactFlow. Join us by registering here.

Please ask PactFlow specific questions in one of the #pactflow channels below (maintained by SmartBear employees), and direct language specific questions to their respective channel such as #pact-jvm for Java or JVM related questions (maintained by the community).

For PactFlow specific questions, see the following channels:

Getting Started with PactFlow

Join a contract testing and PactFlow expert for a monthly one hour drop-in session to learn the basics of contract testing with PactFlow and have your questions answered. See the next upcoming session and register to attend.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is another place you can search for support, the following link will show all questions tagged with pact.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/pact

SmartBear customer care and solutions engineers

If you need PactFlow specific technical support, contact us or for help with a PoC or plan options get in touch with sales.

Migrating from Pact Broker

When you sign up to the SaaS PactFlow platform, we create a new hosted database for you. However, if you previously used the open-source Pact Broker for your contract testing needs we migrate the data so that nothing is lost. The process involves:

Moving your existing database to the hosted environment associated with your PactFlow account.
Udating it for full compatibility with PactFlow. This requires some scheduled down time for the service, including contract publishing and 'can-i-deploy' webhook.

To get started with migrating from Pact Broker contact us with the subject 'migrating from Pact Broker'.

info

Applies to SaaS (Hosted) PactFlow accounts only.

Using On-Premises and want to migrate to the SaaS platform? Check out our on-prem migration guide here.

Configuring your API token

NOTE: You cannot use your username and password to access the PactFlow API.

To publish or verify contracts you need to use one of the bearer tokens from the API Tokens section of your PactFlow settings page.

Open your PactFlow account in a browser and log in with your username and password. Click on the settings icon (the cog wheel icon at the top right of the screen).

You will see the API Tokens page with two tokens listed - a read only token, and a read/write token.

API Token Screen

Contracts and verification results are generally only published from a CI machine, so use the read only token on a local development machine and keep the read/write token for CI.

While each of the following examples shows the use of a hardcoded token, note that you would normally be accessing the token via an environment variable or build parameter that is stored and provided in a secure manner (for example, a Jenkins build secret or a Travis encrypted environment variable).

To configure the token, click the tab for your chosen language:

Consumer

Although code samples are provided here for some languages to publish Pacts, users are recommended to use the Pact CLI tools, either via Docker, or Standalone.

Pact JS (Node JS)

Pact-JS documentation for all the pact publication options.

const { Publisher } = require("@pact-foundation/pact-cli")
const opts = {
pactBroker: 'https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io',
pactBrokerToken: '<TOKEN>',
consumerVersion: process.env.GIT_COMMIT
pactFilesOrDirs: ['./pacts'],
};

new Publisher(opts).publishPacts()

Java / JUnit 5

Pact-JVM documentation for all the pact publication options.

pact {
  publish {
    providerVersion = {  '<GIT_COMMIT>' } //yes, this field name is correct :(
    pactBrokerUrl = 'https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io/'
    pactBrokerToken = '<TOKEN>'
  }
}

Java / JUnit 4

pact {
  publish {
    providerVersion = {  '<GIT_COMMIT>' } //yes, this field name is correct :(
    pactBrokerUrl = 'https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io/'
    pactBrokerToken = '<TOKEN>'
  }
}

Java / Gradle

pact {
  publish {
    providerVersion = {  '<GIT_COMMIT>' } //yes, this field name is correct :(
    pactBrokerUrl = 'https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io/'
    pactBrokerToken = '<TOKEN>'
  }
}

Ruby

Pact Ruby documentation for all the pact publishing options.

Rakefile
require 'pact_broker/client/tasks'

PactBroker::Client::PublicationTask.new do | task |
task.consumer_version = ENV['GIT_COMMIT']
task.pact_broker_base_url = "https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io"
task.pact_broker_token = "<TOKEN>"
end

Docker

Pact CLI Docker documentation for all the pact publishing options.

docker run --rm \
-v ${PWD}:${PWD} \
-e PACT_BROKER_BASE_URL="https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io" \
-e PACT_BROKER_TOKEN="<TOKEN>" \
pactfoundation/pact-cli:latest \
publish \
${PWD}/pacts \
--consumer-app-version ${GIT_COMMIT}

Provider

Pact JS (Node JS)

Pact-JS documentation for all the pact verification options.

const { Verifier } = require("@pact-foundation/pact");

return new Verifier().verifyProvider({
  provider: "<Your provider name here>",
  providerBaseUrl: "http://localhost:8081",

  // Fetch pacts from broker
  pactBrokerUrl: "https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io/",
  pactBrokerToken: "<TOKEN>",

  publishVerificationResult: process.env.CI === "true",
  providerVersion: process.env.GIT_COMMIT,
});

Java / JUnit 5

Pact-JVM documentation for all the pact verification options.

@Provider("<Your provider name here>")
@PactBroker(host = "<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io", scheme = "https",
  authentication = @PactBrokerAuth(scheme = "bearer", username = "<TOKEN>", password = ""))
public class PactJUnitBrokerTest {

    @TestTemplate
    @ExtendWith(PactVerificationInvocationContextProvider.class)
    void testTemplate(Pact pact, Interaction interaction, HttpRequest request, PactVerificationContext context) {
      context.verifyInteraction();
    }
}

Java / JUnit 4

Pact-JVM documentation for all the pact verification options.

@RunWith(PactRunner.class)
@Provider("<Your provider name here>")
@PactBroker(host = "<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io", scheme = "https",
  authentication = @PactBrokerAuth(scheme = "bearer", username = "<TOKEN>", password = ""))
public class PactJUnitBrokerTest {
  @TestTarget
  public final Target target = new HttpTarget(8080);
}

Java / Gradle

Pact-JVM documentation for all the pact verification options.

// To turn on the verification publishing,
// set the project property `pact.verifier.publishResults` to `true`

pact {
  serviceProviders {
    '<Your provider name here>' {

      providerVersion = { '<GIT_COMMIT>' }
      hasPactsFromPactBroker('https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io/',
        authentication: ['Bearer', '<TOKEN>'])

    }
  }
}

Golang

_, err := pact.VerifyProvider(t, types.VerifyRequest{
  ProviderBaseURL:            fmt.Sprintf("http://127.0.0.1:%d", port),
  BrokerURL:                  "https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io",
  BrokerToken:                "<TOKEN>",
  PublishVerificationResults: true,
  ProviderVersion:            "<GIT_COMMIT>"
})

Ruby

Pact Ruby documentation for all the verification options.

spec/pact_helper.rb
Pact.service_provider "<Your provider name here>" do
  app_version ENV['GIT_COMMIT']
  publish_verification_results ENV['CI'] == 'true'

  honours_pacts_from_pact_broker do
    pact_broker_base_url "https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io", { token: "<TOKEN>" }
  end
end

.NET

PactNet documentation for all the pact verification options.

Provider verification options
string version = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("GIT_COMMIT");
string branch = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("GIT_BRANCH");
var config = new PactVerifierConfig
  {
      ...
  };

IPactVerifier pactVerifier = new PactVerifier(config);
pactVerifier.ServiceProvider(providerName, new Uri(_providerUri))
    .WithPactBrokerSource(new Uri(System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PACT_BROKER_BASE_URL")), options =>
    {
        options.ConsumerVersionSelectors(
                    new ConsumerVersionSelector { DeployedOrReleased = true },
                    new ConsumerVersionSelector { MainBranch = true },
                    new ConsumerVersionSelector { MatchingBranch = true }
                )
                .ProviderBranch(branch)
                .PublishResults(!String.IsNullOrEmpty(System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PACT_BROKER_PUBLISH_VERIFICATION_RESULTS")), version, results =>
                {
                    results.ProviderBranch(branch)
                    .BuildUri(new Uri(buildUri));
                })
                .EnablePending()
                .IncludeWipPactsSince(new DateTime(2022, 1, 1));
        options.TokenAuthentication(System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PACT_BROKER_TOKEN"));
    })
    .Verify();

Docker

docker-compose-verify.yml
version: "3"

services:
  api:
    image: "your image"
    expose:
      - "9292"

  pact_verifier:
    image: pactfoundation/pact-cli:latest
    depends_on:
      - api
    environment:
      - PACT_BROKER_BASE_URL="https://<YOUR_BROKER>.pactflow.io"
      - PACT_BROKER_TOKEN="<TOKEN>"
    command: >
      verify
      --provider-base-url http://api:9292
      --provider "<Your provider name here>"

To run

docker-compose -f docker-compose-verify.yml up \
    --build --abort-on-container-exit --exit-code-from pact_verifier

Supported Tools & Languages

Pact is available in many different implementations, click the language icon to take you to the implementation guide or readme.

The guides cover the consumer-driven contract testing flow.

Consumer-Driven

Pact Language implementation guide for JavaScript

Demo applications:

React JavaScript Website tested using Pact to generate consumer pacts

React JavaScript Website tested using Cypress to generate consumer pacts

ExpressJS API provider tested with Pact Verifier

ExpressJS AWS Lambda SNS Provider tested with Pact Verifier

Bi-Directional

PactFlow supports many different testing tools for Bi-Directional Contract Testing.

Click on a testing tool icon to see a demo application you can quickly run to get you started

Consumer Side

PactFlow consumer side demo with Cypress

Provider side

PactFlow provider side demo with ReadyAPI

Create an account​

Learn about contract testing​

Videos​

Workshops​

Essential reading​

Getting help​

Pact Slack​

Getting Started with PactFlow​

Stack Overflow​

SmartBear customer care and solutions engineers​

Migrating from Pact Broker​

Configuring your API token​

Consumer​

Pact JS (Node JS)​

Java / JUnit 5​

Java / JUnit 4​

Java / Gradle​

Golang​

Ruby​

.NET​

Docker​

Provider​

Pact JS (Node JS)​

Java / JUnit 5​

Java / JUnit 4​

Java / Gradle​

Golang​

Ruby​

.NET​

Docker​

Supported Tools & Languages​

Consumer-Driven​

Bi-Directional​

Consumer Side​

Provider side​

Create an account

Learn about contract testing

Videos

Workshops

Essential reading

Getting help

Pact Slack

Getting Started with PactFlow

Stack Overflow

SmartBear customer care and solutions engineers

Migrating from Pact Broker

Configuring your API token

Consumer

Pact JS (Node JS)

Java / JUnit 5

Java / JUnit 4

Java / Gradle

Golang

Ruby

.NET

Docker

Provider

Pact JS (Node JS)

Java / JUnit 5

Java / JUnit 4

Java / Gradle

Golang

Ruby

.NET

Docker

Supported Tools & Languages

Consumer-Driven

Bi-Directional

Consumer Side

Provider side