diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index 317ccb2e1..4fd015faf 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -129,6 +129,7 @@ Solving specific problems
 
    faq
    topics/debug
+   topics/testing
    topics/firefox
    topics/firebug
    topics/leaks
@@ -143,6 +144,9 @@ Solving specific problems
 :doc:`topics/debug`
     Learn how to debug common problems of your scrapy spider.
 
+:doc:`topics/testing`
+	Learn how to use contracts for testing your spiders.
+
 :doc:`topics/firefox`
     Learn how to scrape with Firefox and some useful add-ons.
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/commands.rst b/docs/topics/commands.rst
index bac238fb8..5ca53d273 100644
--- a/docs/topics/commands.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/commands.rst
@@ -142,6 +142,7 @@ Global commands:
 Project-only commands:
 
 * :command:`crawl`
+* :command:`check`
 * :command:`list`
 * :command:`edit`
 * :command:`parse`
@@ -221,6 +222,33 @@ Usage examples::
     [ ... myspider starts crawling ... ]
 
 
+.. command:: check
+
+check
+-----
+
+* Syntax: ``scrapy check [-l] <spider>``
+* Requires project: *yes*
+
+Run contract checks.
+
+Usage examples::
+
+    $ scrapy check -l
+    first_spider
+      * parse
+      * parse_item
+    second_spider
+      * parse
+      * parse_item
+
+    $ scrapy check
+    [FAILED] first_spider:parse_item
+    >>> 'RetailPricex' field is missing
+
+    [FAILED] first_spider:parse
+    >>> Returned 92 requests, expected 0..4
+
 .. command:: server
 
 server
diff --git a/docs/topics/settings.rst b/docs/topics/settings.rst
index 682206db8..c2bc8d584 100644
--- a/docs/topics/settings.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/settings.rst
@@ -832,6 +832,30 @@ The scheduler to use for crawling.
 
 .. setting:: SPIDER_MIDDLEWARES
 
+
+SPIDER_CONTRACTS
+----------------
+
+Default:: ``{}``
+
+A dict containing the scrapy contracts enabled in your project, used for
+testing spiders. For more info see :ref:`topics-testing`.
+
+SPIDER_CONTRACTS_BASE
+---------------------
+
+Default::
+
+    {
+        'scrapy.contracts.default.UrlContract' : 1,
+        'scrapy.contracts.default.ReturnsContract': 2,
+        'scrapy.contracts.default.ScrapesContract': 3,
+    }
+
+A dict containing the scrapy contracts enabled by default in Scrapy. You should
+never modify this setting in your project, modify :setting:`SPIDER_CONTRACTS`
+instead. For more info see :ref:`topics-testing`.
+
 SPIDER_MIDDLEWARES
 ------------------
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/testing.rst b/docs/topics/testing.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b24e62dce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/topics/testing.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+.. _topics-testing:
+
+===============
+Testing Spiders
+===============
+
+Testing spiders can get particularly annoying and while nothing prevents you
+from writing unit tests the task gets cumbersome quickly. Scrapy offers an
+integrated way of testing your spiders by the means of contracts.
+
+This allows you to test each callback of your spider by hardcoding a sample url
+and check various constraints for how the callback processes the response. Each
+contract is prefixed with an ``@`` and included in the docstring. See the
+following example::
+
+    def parse(self, response):
+        """ This function parses a sample response. Some contracts are mingled
+        with this docstring.
+
+        @url http://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=selfish+gene
+        @returns items 1 16
+        @returns requests 0 0
+        @scrapes Title Author Year Price
+        """
+
+This callback is tested using three built-in contracts:
+
+.. module:: scrapy.contracts.default
+
+.. class:: UrlContract
+
+    This contract (``@url``) sets the sample url used when checking other
+    contract conditions for this spider. This contract is mandatory. All
+    callbacks lacking this contract are ignored when running the checks::
+
+    @url url
+
+.. class:: ReturnsContract
+
+    This contract (``@returns``) sets lower and upper bounds for the items and
+    requests returned by the spider. The upper bound is optional::
+
+    @returns item(s)|request(s) [min [max]]
+
+.. class:: ScrapesContract
+
+    This contract (``@scrapes``) checks that all the items returned by the
+    callback have the specified fields::
+
+    @scrapes field_1 field_2 ...
+
+Use the :command:`check` command to run the contract checks.
+
+Custom Contracts
+================
+
+If you find you need more power than the built-in scrapy contracts you can
+create and load your own contracts in the project by using the
+:setting:`SPIDER_CONTRACTS` setting::
+
+    SPIDER_CONTRACTS = {
+        'myproject.contracts.ResponseCheck': 10,
+        'myproject.contracts.ItemValidate': 10,
+    }
+
+Each contract must inherit from :class:`scrapy.contracts.Contract` and can
+override three methods:
+
+.. module:: scrapy.contracts
+
+.. class:: Contract(method, \*args)
+
+    :param method: callback function to which the contract is associated
+    :type method: function
+
+    :param args: list of arguments passed into the docstring (whitespace
+        separated)
+    :type args: list
+
+    .. method:: Contract.adjust_request_args(args)
+
+        This receives a ``dict`` as an argument containing default arguments
+        for :class:`~scrapy.http.Request` object. Must return the same or a
+        modified version of it.
+
+    .. method:: Contract.pre_process(response)
+
+        This allows hooking in various checks on the response received from the
+        sample request, before it's being passed to the callback.
+
+    .. method:: Contract.post_process(output)
+
+        This allows processing the output of the callback. Iterators are
+        converted listified before being passed to this hook.
+
+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::
+
+    from scrapy.contracts import Contract
+    from scrapy.exceptions import ContractFail
+
+    class HasHeaderContract(Contract):
+        """ Demo contract which checks the presence of a custom header
+            @has_header X-CustomHeader
+        """
+
+        name = 'has_header'
+
+        def pre_process(self, response):
+            for header in self.args:
+                if header not in response.headers:
+                    raise ContractFail('X-CustomHeader not present')
diff --git a/scrapy/contracts/__init__.py b/scrapy/contracts/__init__.py
index 51f7d94c6..26cde61e3 100644
--- a/scrapy/contracts/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/contracts/__init__.py
@@ -60,7 +60,9 @@ class Contract(object):
         cb = request.callback
         @wraps(cb)
         def wrapper(response):
-            self.pre_process(response)
+            try: self.pre_process(response)
+            except ContractFail as e:
+                print e.format(self.method)
             return list(iterate_spider_output(cb(response)))
 
         request.callback = wrapper
@@ -71,7 +73,9 @@ class Contract(object):
         @wraps(cb)
         def wrapper(response):
             output = list(iterate_spider_output(cb(response)))
-            self.post_process(output)
+            try: self.post_process(output)
+            except ContractFail as e:
+                print e.format(self.method)
             return output
 
         request.callback = wrapper
diff --git a/scrapy/exceptions.py b/scrapy/exceptions.py
index c22ba0204..f41403bb4 100644
--- a/scrapy/exceptions.py
+++ b/scrapy/exceptions.py
@@ -52,4 +52,7 @@ class ScrapyDeprecationWarning(Warning):
 
 class ContractFail(AssertionError):
     """Error raised in case of a failing contract"""
-    pass
+    
+    def format(self, method):
+        return '[FAILED] %s:%s\n>>> %s\n' % \
+            (method.im_class.name, method.__name__, self)