Reliable AWS Lambda Data Pipelines with AsyncAPI Specification

Event-driven architectures powered by Kafka and AWS Lambda are increasingly popular for real-time analytics pipelines. However, schema compatibility issues between Lambda functions are often detected too late—during end-to-end or integration testing—making them expensive to fix.

What if we could define and validate event schemas before integration, ensuring compatibility between Lambda functions and pipeline stages early in the development cycle?

In this talk, I’ll share practical lessons from building real-world Kafka–Lambda pipelines and demonstrate how we use the AsyncAPI Specification (https://www.asyncapi.com) as an executable contract to detect schema mismatches early and ensure reliable data transformation. We’ll model Kafka topics and event schemas (Avro, XML, JSON, etc.) using AsyncAPI 3.0’s request-reply pattern, and show how we can use the same for automated contract testing with Specmatic (https://specmatic.io/) to verify each Lambda function’s input-output compatibility in isolation.

Attendees will walk away with a clear strategy and practical tools to: Isolated Lambda Testing – Rapidly test AWS Lambda functions locally with Kafka and tools like LocalStack. Iterate faster and debug earlier. Executable Contracts with AsyncAPI – Turn AsyncAPI specs into living contract tests (#NOCODE) to ensure every message transformation aligns with the agreed schema. Early, Targeted Feedback – Instantly identify contract mismatches and integration issues at the function level, saving hours of debugging and keeping pipelines in sync. If you work on data products or event-driven pipelines with AWS Lambda and want faster iteration, higher reliability, and a clear way to communicate and enforce data expectations, this session is for you.