Verify a contract

Once your contract is authored and published (or available locally), you can verify whether the actual data complies with the defined expectations. Soda provides two execution options:

• Soda Core – run verifications locally, typically in CI/CD pipelines or dev environments.

• Soda Agent – run verifications remotely using an agent deployed in your environment, triggered via Soda Cloud.

Both approaches support variable overrides, publishing results to Soda Cloud, and integration into automated workflows.

Learn more about Deployment options

Using Soda Core

Soda Core runs the verification locally, connecting to your data source using the defined data source configuration file.

soda contract verify --data-source ds.yml --contract contract.yaml

This command:

• Connects to your database using the local config

• Loads the contract

• Runs all checks and returns a pass/fail result

With variable overrides

You can pass variables defined in the contract using the --set flag:

soda contract verify --data-source ds.yml --contract contract.yaml --set START_DATE=2024-05-01

Learn about variables in Data Contract: Make contracts dynamic with variables

Publish results to Soda Cloud

To send verification results to Soda Cloud for visibility and reporting.

Add the flag --publish to the command.

This action requires the "Manage contract" permission on the dataset; the user is identified based on the API key provided in the Soda Cloud configuration.

Learn more about permissions here: Dataset Attributes & Responsibilities

soda contract verify --data-source ds.yml --contract contract.yaml --publish --soda-cloud sc.yml

Learn how to connect the CLI to Soda Cloud: Connect to Soda Cloud

This is recommended if you want stakeholders to see the outcomes in Soda Cloud or include them in dashboards and alerting.

Using Soda Agent

Soda Agent executes verifications using data sources configured in Soda Cloud.

soda contract verify --contract contract.yaml --use-agent --soda-cloud sc.yml

This setup:

• Runs verifications through the Soda Agent connected to your data source

• Fetches the published contract from Soda Cloud

• Returns the result locally in the CLI

With variable overrides

You can pass variables defined in the contract using the --set flag:

soda contract verify --contract contract.yaml --use-agent --soda-cloud sc.yml --set START_DATE=2024-05-01

Learn about variables in Data Contract: Make contracts dynamic with variables

Publish results to Soda Cloud

You can also push results to Soda Cloud from the agent-based run.

Add the flag --publish to the command.

This action requires the "Manage contract" permission on the dataset; the user is identified based on the API key provided in the Soda Cloud configuration.

Learn more about permissions here: Dataset Attributes & Responsibilities

soda contract verify --dataset datasource/db/schema/table --publish --use-agent --soda-cloud sc.yml

This is recommended if you want stakeholders to see the outcomes in the Soda Cloud or include them in dashboards and alerting.