Author a Contract in Soda Cloud

Once your dataset is onboarded, you can begin defining the expectations that make up your Data Contract.

Creating a Contract

To create a Data Contract, navigate to any onboarded dataset and click Create Contract.

You’ll be taken to the Contract Editor, a powerful interface where you can define your contract in two ways:

• No-code view: Point-and-click UI to add quality checks and configure settings

• Code view: YAML editor for full control and advanced use cases.

See language reference: Contract Language Reference

You can switch between views at any time using the editor toggle in the top right corner.

Key Concepts in Contract Authoring

Understanding how to structure your contract is essential. Soda supports several types of checks and configuration options:

• Filter: applies a global filter to limit which rows are considered across the entire contract (e.g., only the latest partition or rows from the past 7 days.)

• Variables: help you parameterize your contract, making it flexible and adaptable to different contexts (e.g., environments, schedules, or partitions.)

• Dataset-level Checks: rules that apply to the dataset as a whole, like row count, freshness, or schema checks.

• Column-level Checks: rules that apply to individual columns, like missing values, uniqueness, ranges, or regex formats.

All visible columns are detected during onboarding. You can also manually add columns if needed.

Use Variables

Variables allow dynamic substitution of values in contracts. They help you:

• Parameterize values that differ across environments, datasets, or schedules.

• Reuse values in multiple places within the same contract to reduce duplication and improve maintainability.

You can define variables at the top of your contract:

Then use them throughout your contract using the ${var.VARIABLE_NAME} syntax.

For example:

filter: country = "${var.country}";

When running the contract, variable values must be provided unless a default is defined.

Variables are ideal for partitioned datasets, date-based rules, or customizing checks based on context.

Out of the box variables

Now: You can use ${soda.NOW} in your Contract to access the current timestamp.

Define Attributes

Use attributes to label, sort, and route your checks in Soda Cloud. Attributes help you organize checks by properties such as domain, priority, location, and sensitivity (e.g., PII).

Learn how to leverage attributes with Notifications and Browse Datasets.

Apply Attributes to Checks

You can add attributes directly to individual checks. For example:

Set Default Attributes at the Top Level

You can also define default attributes at the dataset level. These attributes apply to all checks, unless overridden at the individual check level.

Attribute Validation in Soda Cloud

When publishing contract results to Soda Cloud, all check attributes must be pre-defined in Soda Cloud. If any attribute used in a contract is not registered in your Soda Cloud environment, the results will not be published, and the data contract scan will be marked as failed.

Learn how to configure attributes in Soda Cloud: Check and dataset attributes.

Testing the Contract

Before publishing, click Test to simulate a contract verification against your live data. Soda will:

• Run all defined checks

• Display which rules pass or fail

• Surface profiling and diagnostic insights

This dry run helps ensure your contract behaves as expected, before making it official.

Publishing the Contract

Once you're happy with the results, click Publish.

Publishing sets this version as the source of truth for that dataset. From this point on:

• Verifications will use the published version

• All users see this contract as the authoritative definition of data quality for that dataset

• Changes will require a new version or a proposal (depending on permissions)

Publishing ensures your data expectations are versioned, visible, and enforceable.

Contract Proposal (coming soon)

We’re adding a Contract Proposal workflow to support collaborative authoring and approval. This will allow non-technical users to propose changes, which can then be reviewed and accepted by engineering or data owners, integrating governance into the editing process.

You’re now ready to start verifying your contract and monitoring your data.