Use contract-aware tests to prove your generated SOAP client still matches the carrier's live expectations.
SOAP contract testing sits between unit tests and live incident response. It proves that your generated client, mapping layer, and sample payloads still align with the carrier's current WSDL, XSD, and header expectations. Safe probes, golden-request validation, and generated-client smoke tests catch drift before the next scheduled batch rediscovers it in production.
The important point is scope: contract tests verify the external boundary. They are not just another copy of internal unit tests, and they are not a replacement for canary traffic when the carrier announces a sunset or schema refresh.