Ship changes

This section shows how to ship a contract change safely: check it, see exactly what changed, get it reviewed, release an immutable version and move consumers to it. A contract is the .axiom artifact that describes your API. A consumer is any client, SDK or Acore UI app built against it.

Publishing a contract and deploying an application are separate operations. Releasing a contract version to Axiom Cloud does not start, deploy or update a backend service.

The change flow

Diagram source

flowchart TD
  A[Edit source] --> B[Check and test]
  B --> C[Semantic diff]
  C --> D[Contract pull request]
  D --> E[Release a version]
  E --> F[Cloud verification, tests and policy]
  F --> G[latest channel]
  G --> H[Consumers upgrade]

1. Edit the .acore source, or re-extract the contract from your existing backend.
2. Check and test locally with axiom check, axiom test and axiom security check.
3. Compare the new contract with the last accepted one. The semantic diff classifies each change as breaking, risky or compatible.
4. Review the pair of releases in a contract pull request when your team needs approval.
5. Release an immutable version with axiom release. Axiom Cloud verifies and signs it, tests it against a managed sandbox and applies the release policy.
6. Upgrade consumers by pinning the new version, resolving a new lock and re-running their tests.

Example: a semantic diff

Removing an endpoint between two versions of a backend contract is a breaking change. Compare the two sources:

axiom diff v1.acore v2.acore

### 🚨 Breaking Changes
- Removed endpoint: **`ping`**

### ⚙️ Configuration
- ⚙️ Updated `project` config: `version` changed to `1.1.0`

The same classification appears in a contract pull request, where reviewers can discuss each change before the release reaches consumers.

Before you promote

Check the exact target, artifact, authentication, permissions, consumer behavior, observability and rollback limits for the release. Local success does not certify another platform or environment. Check the support matrix for each path you rely on.

Next steps

• Review a change in a contract pull request
• Release a version and upgrade consumers
• Work through the production-readiness checklist
• Learn what Axiom Cloud records for each release