---
id: dwd_qywin2zi
type: term
slug: data-contract
title: "Data contract"
summary: "An explicit, versioned agreement between a data producer and its consumers about schema, meaning, quality and freshness."
status: draft
classification: public
authors:
  - name: Shan Umasankar
    url: https://dealwithdata.com
    role: author
assisted_by: [Claude]
scales: [personal, business, enterprise]
related: [dwd_cb2bgvae]
created: 2026-10-07
updated: 2026-10-07
version: 1
---
A data contract turns unspoken expectations into something checkable: the schema, the semantics, quality thresholds, freshness and who to call. It is enforced in CI or at load time. The Open Data Contract Standard (ODCS) is the leading open format.

**Example:** "`OUTSTANDING_BAL_AMT` stays `DECIMAL(18,2)`, refreshes daily by 06:00, nulls under 1%."

*This site applies the idea to itself:* every content file must satisfy `schema/item.schema.json` before it is published.