Breakwatch

Your microservices have a contract. Breakwatch enforces it before merge.

An OpenAPI breaking-change detector that knows which downstream consumers will actually break. Most API diff tools tell you what changed. Breakwatch tells you who cares.

Demo

_{Also available as MP4 (for sharing) or GIF.}

The Problem

Team A changes their API. Team B's mobile app breaks in production. The spec diff showed "field removed" — but nobody connected it to Team B.

Breakwatch maintains a service-to-consumer graph (breakwatch.yaml). When a producer's spec changes, it classifies each change as BREAKING, RISKY, or SAFE, then filters the results per consumer. Same spec change, different verdict per team.

How It Works

1. Diff    — structurally compare two OpenAPI 3.x specs
2. Classify — label each change: BREAKING / RISKY / SAFE
3. Filter  — check the consumer graph: who uses the affected endpoints?

Installation

pip install breakwatch

Quick Start

Raw diff (Phase 1)

Compare two specs and get classified changes:

# Rich terminal output
breakwatch diff old-spec.yaml new-spec.yaml

# JSON for CI
breakwatch diff old-spec.yaml new-spec.yaml --format json

Per-consumer impact (Phase 2)

Define your service topology in breakwatch.yaml:

version: 1
producers:
  api:
    spec: ./services/api/openapi.yaml

consumers:
  mobile-app:
    consumes:
      - producer: api
        endpoints:
          - GET /users/{id}
          - POST /orders
  web-dashboard:
    consumes:
      - producer: api
        endpoints:
          - GET /users/{id}
          - GET /admin/*

Then check per-consumer impact:

# Check all consumers
breakwatch check -c breakwatch.yaml -p api --old old.yaml --new new.yaml

# Check a single consumer
breakwatch check -c breakwatch.yaml -p api --old old.yaml --new new.yaml --consumer mobile-app

# JSON for CI
breakwatch check -c breakwatch.yaml -p api --old old.yaml --new new.yaml -f json

GitHub Action (Phase 3)

Add to your workflow:

name: API Contract Check
on: pull_request

jobs:
  breakwatch:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: pyjeebz/breakwatch@v1
        with:
          config: breakwatch.yaml
          producer: api
          old-spec: services/api/openapi.yaml  # from base branch
          new-spec: services/api/openapi.yaml  # from PR branch
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Breakwatch will:

• Post a PR comment showing per-consumer impact
• Set a commit status check (pass/fail)
• Exit with code 1 if breaking changes affect any consumer

Classification Rules

Breaking

Change	Why
Endpoint removed	Consumers calling it will get 404s
Required response field removed	Consumers parsing it will crash
Response field type changed	Consumers deserializing it will get wrong types
New required request field	Existing client code won't send it
Status code removed	Consumers handling it will get unexpected responses
Auth scheme changed	Existing tokens/keys will stop working

Risky

Change	Why
Optional field made required	Consumers not sending it may start failing
Field made nullable	Consumers not handling null may crash
Enum value removed	Consumers matching on it will miss cases

Safe

Change	Why
New endpoint	Existing consumers unaffected
New optional request field	Old clients just don't send it
New response field	Old clients ignore extra fields
New enum value	Old clients still see their known values
Documentation changes	No runtime impact

CLI Reference

breakwatch diff

breakwatch diff OLD NEW [--format text|json]

Compare two OpenAPI specs. Exits with code 1 if BREAKING changes found.

breakwatch check

breakwatch check --config PATH --producer NAME --old PATH --new PATH
                [--consumer NAME] [--format text|json]

Check per-consumer impact using the consumer graph. Exits with code 1 if any consumer has BREAKING changes.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	No breaking changes
1	Breaking changes detected
2	Input error (bad spec, bad config, unknown producer)

See the demo monorepo for a working example with 3 services.

# Run the demo
breakwatch check \
  -c examples/demo-monorepo/breakwatch.yaml \
  -p user-api \
  --old examples/demo-monorepo/services/producer-api/openapi.yaml \
  --new examples/demo-monorepo/services/producer-api/openapi-breaking.yaml

License

Apache 2.0