"Data contracts are one of the hottest topics in the data management community. A data contract is a formal agreement between a data producer and its consumers, aimed at reducing data downtime and improving data quality. Schemas are an important part of data contracts, but they are not the only relevant element. In this talk, we’ll: 1. see why data contracts are so important but also difficult to implement; 2. identify the characteristics of a well-designed data contract: discuss the anatomy of a data contract, its main elements and, how to formally describe them; 3. show how to manage the lifecycle of a data contract leveraging Confluent Platform's services."