Publishing Drift Results to PactFlow

Before publishing to PactFlow, you need:

Set these environment variables in your CI/CD system:

export PACTFLOW_BASE_URL="https://your-workspace.pactflow.io"
export PACTFLOW_TOKEN="your-api-token"

Finding your token: Log in to PactFlow → Settings → API Tokens → Copy token

┌──────────────────┐
│ Run Drift Tests  │
└────────┬─────────┘
         │
         ├─ Executes drift verifier with --generate-result
         │
         ├─ Generates PactFlow-specific verification bundle
         │ (output/results/verification.{timestamp}.result)
         │
         ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ Publish to PactFlow          │
│ pactflow publish-provider... │
└────────┬─────────────────────┘
         │
         ├─ Sends OpenAPI spec
         │
         ├─ Sends verification results
         │
         ├─ Associates with provider version
         │
         ▼
┌────────────────────────────┐
│ PactFlow BDCT Dashboard    │
│ - Contract verification    │
│ - Coverage insights        │
│ - Consumer/Provider view   │
└────────────────────────────┘

First, run your Drift tests with the --generate-result flag to generate a PactFlow-specific verification bundle:

drift verifier \
  --test-files drift.yaml \
  --server-url http://localhost:8080 \
  --output-dir ./output \
  --generate-result

The --generate-result flag tells Drift to generate a special report format for PactFlow integration. This creates a verification result file with a timestamp in the name:

Output/results/verification.20260211221227.result

The file follows the pattern: verification.{timestamp}.result where the timestamp is in YYYYMMDDHHmmss format.

Check that the bundle was generated:

ls -la output/results/verification.*.result

After Drift tests complete, publish the results using the pactflow CLI. You'll need to reference the generated verification bundle file:

# Capture the exit code from Drift
EXIT_CODE=$?

# Find the generated verification bundle
VERIFICATION_FILE=$(ls output/results/verification.*.result | head -n 1)

# Publish to PactFlow
pactflow publish-provider-contract \
  openapi.yaml \
  --provider "my-product-api" \
  --provider-app-version "$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)" \
  --branch "$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)" \
  --content-type application/yaml \
  --verification-exit-code $EXIT_CODE \
  --verification-results "$VERIFICATION_FILE" \
  --verification-results-content-type application/vnd.smartbear.drift.result \
  --verifier drift

Key parameters

After publishing the provider contract and Drift verification result, open the provider version in PactFlow to review the verification outcome, contract details, and BDCT status. Confirm that the published version is associated with the expected branch and application version, then use the PactFlow UI to inspect compatibility before release.

name: Contract Tests

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - develop
  pull_request:

jobs:
  contract-tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    services:
      # Your API server (if needed)
      api:
        image: your-api:latest
        ports:
          - 8080:8080

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Install Drift
        run: |
          wget -O - https://download.pactflow.io/drift/latest/linux-x86_64.tgz | tar xz -C /usr/local/bin
          drift --version

      - name: Install PactFlow CLI
        run: |
          npm install -g @pactfoundation/pact-cli

      - name: Run Drift Tests
        run: |
          drift verifier \
            --test-files drift.yaml \
            --server-url http://localhost:8080 \
            --output-dir ./output \
            --generate-result
        continue-on-error: true  # Continue even if tests fail, to publish results

      - name: Publish Results to PactFlow
        if: always()  # Run even if tests failed
        run: |
          export EXIT_CODE=${{ job.status == 'success' && '0' || '1' }}
          export VERIFICATION_FILE=$(ls output/results/verification.*.result | head -n 1)
          
          pactflow publish-provider-contract \
            openapi.yaml \
            --provider "my-product-api" \
            --provider-app-version "${{ github.sha }}" \
            --branch "${{ github.ref_name }}" \
            --content-type application/yaml \
            --verification-exit-code $EXIT_CODE \
            --verification-results "$VERIFICATION_FILE" \
            --verification-results-content-type application/vnd.smartbear.drift.result \
            --verifier drift
        env:
          PACTFLOW_BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.PACTFLOW_BASE_URL }}
          PACTFLOW_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.PACTFLOW_TOKEN }}

      - name: Upload Test Results
        if: always()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: drift-results
          path: output/