validate

disclosureos validate checks observation JSON files against the full standard. It runs the same parseEnrichedObservation pipeline the libraries use, plus file handling and provenance warnings.

Usage

disclosureos validate <path...> [options]

Paths can be files, directories, or shell globs — mixed freely and deduped:

disclosureos validate ./data/nimitz.json
disclosureos validate ./data/ --recursive
disclosureos validate ./imports/*.json ./curated/key-cases.json

A path that matches no JSON fails the run — a typo'd path can never masquerade as a clean validation.

Options

What it checks

Errors (fail the run, exit code 1):

• Required fields and type correctness for the core record (via records' validator)
• Observable assessment levels and ids, when observableAssessments is present
• OCS node ids and confidence ranges, when origin is present
• Unknown top-level keys — third-party data belongs under extensions
• Semantic sanity: non-negative durations, speeds, witness counts

Warnings (reported, never fail the run):

• Dangling evidence refs — a claim citing sensor:radar-01 when the record has no sensor with that id, or a malformed ref that doesn't match <kind>:<id>
• Missing recommended fields, with --strict

data/case-0042.json
  ✗ origin[0].confidence: Too big: expected number to be <=1
  ⚠ observableAssessments.technology.transmedium_travel[0].evidenceRefs[0]:
    dangling evidence ref "sensor:spy1" — no sensor with id "spy1" in record

1 error(s) across 3 file(s)

Why dangling refs are warnings, not errors

The schema deliberately keeps evidenceRefs as plain strings (for JSON Schema portability), so a dangling ref is structurally valid — but it's a broken provenance link the author should fix. The CLI surfaces it without --strict because an evidence-backed claim whose evidence can't be found undermines the whole point of the claim model.

Structured JSON output

Use --json (or -j) for machine-readable output. The JSON includes per-file results (errors, warnings, validity) and aggregate totals:

disclosureos validate ./data/ --recursive --json

{
  "files": [{ "file": "...", "valid": true, "errors": [], "warnings": [] }],
  "emptyTargets": [],
  "totals": { "files": 1, "errors": 0, "warnings": 0, "emptyTargets": 0 },
  "valid": true
}

CI usage

Exit code is 0 only when every file is valid and every path matched. Wire it straight into CI:

- name: Validate observation data
  run: npx @disclosureos/cli validate ./data --recursive --strict

See also

• completeness — measure which fields are missing after validation passes
• Onboarding workspace — guided migration workflow with paste-and-validate playground