Lessons from Our API Past: Evolving to a Resilient API Future
Is your microservice architecture secretly a distributed monolith? Learn how contract testing helps you escape the trap and deploy services with confidence.
#1about 3 minutes
Understanding the high stakes of modern API failures
Critical failures in APIs can cause massive disruption, as seen in real-world examples of zombie APIs, insecure design, and knowledge loss.
#2about 3 minutes
How microservices increased system complexity and failure points
The evolution from waterfall monoliths to agile microservices created a "service death star" with numerous potential points of failure.
#3about 2 minutes
Navigating the headwinds and barriers of microservice sprawl
Teams face challenges with microservice adoption due to a lack of skills, system complexity, and pressure to deliver features quickly.
#4about 5 minutes
Why traditional testing methods fail for microservice architectures
Integrated and end-to-end tests become slow, flaky, and hard to debug, providing feedback too late in the development cycle.
#5about 7 minutes
The role and limitations of API specifications
While OpenAPI and AsyncAPI provide a common language, they don't solve provider drift, consumer drift, versioning, or governance challenges.
#6about 3 minutes
Introducing contract testing for safe API evolution
Contract testing validates interactions between services in isolation, providing fast feedback without the need for integrated environments.
#7about 2 minutes
Implementing a safe deployment workflow with Pact Broker
The Pact Broker stores contracts and enables the `can-i-deploy` tool to verify compatibility before deploying services independently.
#8about 2 minutes
Gaining early feedback with advanced contract testing techniques
Bi-directional contract testing and design-time checks in tools like Swagger Editor provide impact analysis before any code is written.
#9about 2 minutes
Preparing for the future with AI agent workflows
The Arazzo specification helps document and compose complex, deterministic API workflows to manage the rise of AI agent consumers.
#10about 1 minute
Using contract testing to build a version-free API
By understanding consumer usage through contracts, teams can manage breaking changes, combat Hyrum's Law, and reduce the need for API versioning.
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