How to use the Conformance Tool to become PACT Conformant and get listed on the PACT website?

Step 1: Create an Account and Access the Tool

Go to services.carbon-transparency.org to create an account. To start using the PACT Conformance Tool for testing your solution, your API needs to be accessible from our services and vice-versa. The conformance tool will make a number of calls to your API and verifies the expected result.

Step 2: Complete Testing and Submit Your Solution

After successfully testing your solution using the tool with a 100% pass rate, complete the Solution Submission Form with the following information:

1. Your organization and contact details.
2. The Test Run ID of the successful test run .
3. The Version Number of your solution (as specific as possible).
4. Logos and high-resolution marketing content (e.g., product images)
5. Product details: Short and long descriptions, categories and key functionalities

Step 3: Receive Confirmation and Marketing Materials

Once your submission is reviewed, you will receive an acknowledgment email from the PACT team. This will include:

1. A Press Kit for external communications
2. A PACT Conformance Badge to showcase your status

Policy for Production Readiness of Software

PACT conformance is version-specific and does not imply oversight or endorsement of broader SCM (software configuration management) practices. Responsibility for version management and deployment practices lies with the Solution Provider.

PACT Conformance testing does not require software to be running in a production environment. We do not place requirements on where or how the test is run, as long as the environment is capable of completing the conformance suite.

Instead, we require only that the exact Version Number of the tested software is known and shared with us. This allows us to declare that a specific version is PACT Conformant. You can submit this details directly on the Solution Submission form.

Conformance Tool Beta Retesting Policy

The PACT Conformance tool is the source of truth to assess whether a given solution is PACT Conformant. PACT deeply values the integrity of PACT Conformance status, and therefore ensuring the tool is accurate, comprehensive, and rigorous is critical. However, we recognize it is impossible to guarantee the tool will be entirely bug-free and comprehensive upon launch, despite prior testing. Therefore, when a new version of the test suite is launched (corresponding to a new Tech Specs minor or major release), this version will be indicated in "Beta Phase", as indicated by the drop-down in the conformance testing configuration page. We present below PACT's policy mandating retesting during the Beta phase of a test suite.

Conformance subject to potential retesting in Beta Phase

The following policy was determined in consultation with the PACT community, and is a compromise between 1) ensuring and enforcing the integrity of PACT Conformance and 2) not imposing an undue burden or requirement on Solution Providers to mandate retesting (and/or undue burden on PACT organization to enforce mandatory retesting indefinitely), which ultimately the (ideally) the market should enforce.

When a given test suite version is in "Beta Phase", PACT may identify and resolve an issue with the tool resulting in a solution which previously passed the testing suite for a given version of the Tech Specs to no longer pass the test suite for that same version.

Should a mandatory retesting scenario occur:

• If PACT determines that a new version of the tool requires existing conformant solutions to undergo retesting, PACT will notify the Solution Provider, granting them 60 days to re-demonstrate conformance.
• During this time the Solution Provider will continue to be promoted through PACT marketing channels as before (i.e. via PACT website, at events, etc.).
• Should the Solution Provider fail to re-demonstrate conformance by the deadline, PACT will inform the Solution Provider, remove their conformance status, and remove the solution from PACT marketing channels. Should the organization at some point in the future demonstrate conformance, PACT will promote the organization as conformant as usual.

When a given test suite version is no longer in "Beta Phase", PACT will not require mandatory retesting to retain conformance status, however upon releases of the tool, PACT will inform Solution Providers and encourage retesting.

Solution Providers are regardless encouraged to periodically retest to later versions of the tool, even if not mandated to do so. Further PACT also encourage the customers (and/or potential customers) of Solution Providers to request or mandate re-testing if they have reason to believe their Solution Provider is no longer conformant.

Tool Versioning Scheme

To ensure clarity and transparency when changes are made to the tool, especially changes to the testing suite, PACT will version the tool as follows:

• The tool releases will be numbered according to semantic versioning
• Every minor and major release of the PACT Technical Specifications will correspond to a related tool release; the tool however will release much more frequently than PACT Tech Specs
• Each testing suite (corresponding to a given major/minor version of the Tech Specs) will be indicated as either in "Beta Phase" or "General Release" phase. PACT will determine when to promote a version to "General Release" phase, once the testing suite is stabilized and robust to ensure conformance results are fully reliable and integrous, which will take into consideration issue rate, number of solutions having 100% tests passing, time to conformance, etc.

Tool / Tech Specs discrepancy resolution process

PACT acknowledges that during the use of the tool, the community may encounter questions regarding discrepancies and/or differences of interpretation between the Tech Specs and the tool. This is expected and our goal with the tool is to systematically address and remove these discrepancies, thus driving interoperability robustness. We will use the process defined below to resolve discrepancies / issues as a community,

During use of the tool, a Solution Provider is expected to share feedback if they encounter any of the following, per their interpretation:

• a test case of the tool does not correctly implement the PACT Tech Specs
• PACT Tech Specs are ambiguous and therefore a discrepancy exists between the tool and PACT Tech Specs
• a test case is missing in the tool which the Solution Provider believes is mandatory and should be tested

A Solution Provider is requested to raise a GitHub issue documenting:

• The test case
• The problem observed
• Proposed resolution (i.e. to Tech Specs and/or the tool)

PACT will review issues regularly and triage accordingly:

• Issues having implications to conformance for Solution Providers (i.e. discrepancies in interpretation, ambiguity, etc.) will be raised to PACT Technology Working Group, consensus reached, and corresponding updates to PACT Tech Specs and/or the tool will be implemented
• Issues that do not require consultation from Working Group (i.e. obvious bugs, etc.) will be resolved directly by PACT team
• Every attempt will be made to update the PACT Tech Specs to iteratively remove ambiguities and retain the PACT Tech Specs as the source of truth, with the tool implementing the PACT Tech Specs

PACT will close the issue and log the corresponding decision made; PACT will update the tool and the update will be made available in the next release

Depending on the severity of the issue raised and whether the test suite is in Beta Phase, a conformance retesting period may be required.