General Structure & “Short” Rules

This page describes the overall structure of a validation.json file and details the pre-defined “short” rules available for common checks.

Top-Level Structure

Every validation file is a JSON object with the following top-level keys:

{
  "file_type": "python",
  "description": "A brief description of this rule set.",
  "validation_rules": [
    // ... array of rule objects ...
  ]
}

  • file_type (string, required): Must be "python".

  • description (string, optional): A human-readable description.

  • validation_rules (array, required): An array of one or more rule objects.

Rule Object Structure

Each object inside the validation_rules array must contain the following keys:

{
  "rule_id": 101,
  "message": "This message is shown if the rule fails.",
  "is_critical": false,
  // ... rule-specific keys for either a "short" or "full" rule
}

  • rule_id (integer, required): A unique identifier for the rule.

  • message (string, required): The error message to display upon failure.

  • is_critical (boolean, optional): If true, validation halts immediately if this rule fails. Defaults to false.

A rule object can be either a “short” rule or a “full” rule.

“Short” Rules (Pre-defined Checks)

Short rules provide a quick way to perform common checks. They are identified by a "type" key.

check_syntax

Checks if the Python code is free of syntax errors. This check is performed implicitly before any other rules, but including it allows you to define a custom error message.

JSON `type`:

"check_syntax"

Parameters:

None.

{
  "rule_id": 1,
  "type": "check_syntax",
  "message": "Your code has syntax errors. Please fix them to continue."
}

check_linter_pep8

Runs the flake8 linter to check for compliance with the PEP8 style guide.

: JSON `type`: "check_linter_pep8" : Parameters (`params` object):

  • ignore (list[str], optional): A list of flake8 error codes to ignore (e.g., ["E501"]).

  • select (list[str], optional): A list of flake8 error codes to check for exclusively.

{
  "rule_id": 2,
  "type": "check_linter_pep8",
  "message": "Your code does not follow PEP8 style guidelines.",
  "params": {
    "ignore": ["E501", "W292"]
  }
}

Note

For custom structural checks (e.g., “function solve must exist”), you must use a “full” rule, which is described in the Selectors and Constraints sections.