About Data Contract assets

August 6, 2026

A data contract is a core component of a data product. It acts as a data delivery agreement that specifies the data structure, format, and service-level objectives such as system uptime, latency, and quality metrics.

Technically, a data contract is an asset whose asset type is Data Contract. It is represented by a YAML manifest, which can be generated automatically based on the metadata in Collibra, or uploaded directly to the Data Contract asset.

Data contract manifests

A data contract includes a manifest, which is a machine-readable YAML file containing the definitions and specifications of the contract. This file includes the fundamentals (description, status, and version), schema validation (tables and columns), data quality information, and service-level agreements (SLAs). Data engineers and data producers use manifests in their day-to-day development workflows to create, validate, and deploy data products.

Display formats of manifests

The format of an uploaded manifest file determines how it appears on the Contract Manifest tab on the Data Contract asset page.

View	Description
Structured	If the manifest file adheres to the Open Data Contract Standard (ODCS), the file content appears in a structured, readable format.
Code	If the manifest file does not adhere to ODCS, the file content appears as raw code. Because Collibra does not parse metadata from non-ODCS files, the version number defaults to 0.0.1 during upload. Consider changing it to the version number that is in the file content.

If both views are available, you can switch between the structured view and the raw code view.

Manifest IDs

Every data contract manifest must have a unique manifest ID. Collibra uses this ID to differentiate between data contracts and map updates to the correct asset.

Type	Description
Generated manifest	When you generate a manifest, by default, Collibra uses the UUID of the Data Contract asset as the manifest ID. You can choose to specify a custom manifest ID if needed.
Uploaded manifest	When you upload a manifest, Collibra parses the file code to extract its manifest ID. If another data contract already uses this manifest ID, the upload is rejected to prevent duplicates.

Generating and applying manifests

Collibra keeps data contracts and catalog metadata synchronized by allowing information to flow in both directions.

Action	Direction	Description
Generating a new manifest version	Collibra → manifest	When you generate a new manifest version, Collibra reads existing metadata, such as linked data product ports, tables, columns, and SLA attributes, to automatically build or refresh the manifest.
Applying a manifest version	Manifest → Collibra	When you apply an active manifest version, Collibra writes the relevant content into the knowledge graph. This process creates or updates schema relations between Data Product Port assets and Table assets, and updates out-of-the-box SLA attributes in the Data Contract asset.

Viewing data contracts

You can view data contracts in the following places across Collibra.

Place	Description
Data contract registry	Open the Data Products application, and then click Data Contracts.
Data Product asset page	In the exposes data as Data Product Port section, click a data product port card, and then click the Data contract tab in the Preview sidebar.
Data Product Port asset page	In the should operate according to Data Contract section, click the data contract card.
Data Contract asset page	On the Contract Manifest tab.

Managing data contracts

You can manage data contracts through the following tools:

• Collibra user interface
• CLI and API

These tools are optimized for the Open Data Contract Standard (ODCS), which is an open-source framework that defines the requirements for a data contract manifest file.

Related topics

• Manage data contracts
• Manage data contracts with CLI or API