# Bidirectional contract testing

> What bidirectional contract testing means in the industry, and what declarative and static add here.

The industry defines bidirectional contract testing as the ability for both sides of an integration point to publish their own view of the integration: a consumer contract capturing what the consumer needs, and a provider contract publishing what the provider can do. A broker checks the two views against each other before a deployment, so that neither side has to run against the other to find out whether they still agree.

What the broker does is best described as declarative static bidirectional contract testing: **declarative**, because each side writes down what it provides and what it consumes in a contract file, instead of recording it from running code; **static**, because the broker compares those declarations without executing a service, a mock or a test; and **bidirectional**, because both sides publish, and a deployment of either side is checked against the other.

## Where to go next

- [How the broker works](https://bidirekt.com/docs/concepts/participant.md): the seven terms the broker uses.
- [CLI reference](https://bidirekt.com/docs/reference/cli.md): the commands mentioned on this page.