Data contract is an agreement between a service provider and consumer that defines the structure, format and content of data exchanged between them. It's like a pinky promise between two software components - "I'll send you data that looks like this, and you agree to interpret it in this way" - except it's actually enforceable by code rather than playground rules.

How to use it in a sentence

• When Bob was designing the new microservice architecture, he made sure to define clear data contracts between each service to avoid any confusion or unexpected breakages down the line. He knew all too well the pain of "loosely coupled" services that were actually more tangled than a pile of Christmas lights.

• Alice groaned as she updated the data contract for the third time that week due to changing requirements from the front-end team. She muttered under her breath, "Sure, let's just keep changing the contract. It's not like I have anything better to do, like actually writing code..."

If you actually want to learn more...

• Martin Fowler's article on Consumer-Driven Contracts dives deep into the concept of defining data contracts from the consumer's perspective. It's a bit dense, but hey, if you really want to impress your architect, drop a few quotes from this at the next design review.

• This API Evangelist article discusses the difference between an API contract and API definition. Perfect for those late night philosophical debates about what exactly constitutes a data contract. Bring your own beer.

• If you're into event-driven architectures, check out this article on data contracts in a Kafka context. Because nothing says "fun weekend reading" like diving into the intricacies of schema evolution in distributed log systems. You party animal, you.

Note: the Developer Dictionary is in Beta. Please direct feedback to skye@statsig.com.