event-governance Skill

Events are Data Contracts. They must be governed as strictly as APIs.

1. CloudEvents Standard

Use the standard envelope structure:

{
  "specversion": "1.0",
  "type": "com.example.order.created",
  "source": "/service/order",
  "id": "A234-1234-1234",
  "time": "20.2.01-01T12:00:00Z",
  "datacontenttype": "application/json",
  "data": { ... }
}

2. Schema Registry

• Rule: All event payloads must be validated against a Schema Registry (e.g., Confluent, Glue) before publishing.
• Formats: Avro (preferred for compact/evolution), Protobuf, or JSON Schema.

3. Schema Evolution (Compatibility)

• Backward Compatibility: New consumer can read old data. (Add optional fields).
• Forward Compatibility: Old consumer can read new data. (Ignore unknown fields).
• Full Compatibility: Both.
• Breaking Changes: renaming fields, changing types. Forbidden without a new topic version (orders.v2).

4. Documentation

• Use AsyncAPI to document event topography.
• Treat Events as Public APIs.