Schema Contract

Kind: constraint

Layer: Contracts Core

Record: architecture:schema-contract

Severity: mandatory

Scope: data, API, message

Canonical: Ontology

A rule or precondition that every payload is validated against a machine-readable schema at the boundary it crosses.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Data Contract and before Semantic Contracts.

Requires

• Canonical Schema
• Schema Validation

Reinforces

• Data Contract
• Compatibility

Enables

• Automated Validation

Conflicts with

• Ad-Hoc Payloads

In tension with

• Schema Flexibility

Tensions

• Schema Contract / Schema Flexibility

Violated by

• Ad-Hoc Payloads
• Schema Drift

Refactored by

• Schema Validation
• Binary Schema Encoding
• Define Contract

Severity

• mandatory

Category

• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility

Required by

• Contract-First Design

Linked from

• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Schema / Canonical Data / Semantics
• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Core Vocabulary
• Schema / Canonical Data / Semantics
• Severity levels
• The resolutions