diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 61d5b9600..80b8e3e90 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -246,4 +246,7 @@ coverage_ignore_pyobjects = [
     # Base classes of downloader middlewares are implementation details that
     # are not meant for users.
     r'^scrapy\.downloadermiddlewares\.\w*?\.Base\w*?Middleware',
+
+    # Private exception used by the command-line interface implementation.
+    r'^scrapy\.exceptions\.UsageError',
 ]
diff --git a/docs/topics/contracts.rst b/docs/topics/contracts.rst
index 9337375bb..05b1d161b 100644
--- a/docs/topics/contracts.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/contracts.rst
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ create and load your own contracts in the project by using the
         'myproject.contracts.ItemValidate': 10,
     }
 
-Each contract must inherit from :class:`scrapy.contracts.Contract` and can
+Each contract must inherit from :class:`~scrapy.contracts.Contract` and can
 override three methods:
 
 .. module:: scrapy.contracts
@@ -102,9 +102,14 @@ override three methods:
         This allows processing the output of the callback. Iterators are
         converted listified before being passed to this hook.
 
+Raise :class:`~scrapy.exceptions.ContractFail` from
+:class:`~scrapy.contracts.Contract.pre_process` or
+:class:`~scrapy.contracts.Contract.post_process` if expectations are not met:
+
+.. autoclass:: scrapy.exceptions.ContractFail
+
 Here is a demo contract which checks the presence of a custom header in the
-response received. Raise :class:`scrapy.exceptions.ContractFail` in order to
-get the failures pretty printed::
+response received::
 
     from scrapy.contracts import Contract
     from scrapy.exceptions import ContractFail