Schema Registries and Contracts

A schema registry is the enforcement layer. Without it, compatibility rules are documented but unenforced. The producer publishes a new schema, the registry checks compatibility, and rejects the change if it would break consumers. This catches breaking changes at publish time, not at 3 AM when the pipeline crashes. How It Works Schema Contracts: The Organizational Layer A schema registry enforces technical compatibility. A schema contract enforces organizational agreements. 'Team A guarantees that the payments topic will always have an amount field of type decimal, non-null, with at least 2 decimal places.' The contract is a document (or a metadata record) that defines guarantees beyond what the schema format enforces.