Validate Configs Action

A GitHub Action that catches broken config files in your PRs before they cause problems. Supports JSON, YAML, TOML, XML, INI, HCL, JSONC, KDL, Justfiles, and a bunch more. Errors show up as inline annotations on the PR diff so you know exactly what broke and where.

If a file has a $schema or XSD declaration, it gets schema-validated too. You can also enable SchemaStore for automatic schema lookups on common files like package.json and tsconfig.json.

Quick Start

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2

Add it to any job with actions/checkout and it'll validate every config file in the repo.

Usage

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2

Only validate changed files

If you've got a big repo, you probably don't want to validate everything on every PR:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0
- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    only-changed: "true"

You need fetch-depth: 0 so git can figure out which files actually changed.

Exclude directories

Skip the stuff you don't care about:

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    exclude-dirs: "vendor,testdata,node_modules"

Respect ignore files

Already have a .dockerignore or .prettierignore? Use those same patterns to skip files:

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    ignore-files: ".dockerignore,.prettierignore"

SchemaStore

SchemaStore is a community catalog of JSON Schemas for common config files. Turn it on and you get schema validation for hundreds of files out of the box:

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schemastore: "true"

Outputs

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  id: validate
  continue-on-error: true
- run: |
    echo "Files validated: ${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-validated }}"
    echo "Files failed: ${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-failed }}"

Inputs

Input	Default	Description
search-paths	"."	Space-separated dirs or files to scan
exclude-dirs	""	Comma-separated dirs to skip
exclude-file-types	""	Comma-separated file types to skip (e.g. csv,xml)
file-types	""	Only validate these file types. Can't use with exclude-file-types
depth	""	Recursion depth. 0 means don't recurse
reporter	"standard"	Output format. Options: standard, json, junit, sarif, github. Use type:path for file output, comma-separate for multiple
group-by	""	Group output: filetype, directory, or pass-fail
quiet	"false"	Suppress stdout
globbing	"false"	Use glob patterns in search-paths. Can't combine with exclude-dirs/exclude-file-types/file-types
require-schema	"false"	Fail files that could have a schema but don't declare one
no-schema	"false"	Skip all schema validation, syntax only
schemastore	"false"	Auto-lookup schemas from the embedded SchemaStore catalog
schemastore-path	""	Path to a local SchemaStore clone (for air-gapped envs). Implies schemastore
type-map	""	Map globs to file types: pattern:type (e.g. **/inventory:ini)
schema-map	""	Map globs to schemas: pattern:schema_path (e.g. **/config.json:schemas/config.schema.json)
only-changed	"false"	Only check files changed in the current PR
gitignore	"false"	Skip files matched by .gitignore
ignore-files	""	Comma-separated list of gitignore-style pattern files to use as filters (e.g. .dockerignore,.prettierignore)

Supported file types

csv, editorconfig, env, hcl (.tf, .tfvars), hocon, ini, json, jsonc, justfile, kdl, plist, properties, sarif, toml, toon, xml, yaml

Plus ~90 well-known filenames (.babelrc, tsconfig.json, Pipfile, pom.xml, etc.) are auto-detected even without a file extension.

Outputs

Output	Description
files-validated	Total files scanned
files-failed	Files that failed validation
exit-code	0 = success, 1 = validation errors, 2 = runtime error

Examples

Filtering

Only specific file types

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    file-types: "json,yaml"

Exclude file types

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    exclude-file-types: "csv,xml"

No recursion

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    depth: 0

Glob patterns

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    globbing: "true"
    search-paths: "**/*.json config/**/*.yaml"

Use existing ignore files

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    ignore-files: ".dockerignore,.prettierignore"

Reporters

GitHub annotations (inline on the PR diff)

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    reporter: "github"

JSON

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    reporter: "json"

Multiple reporters with file output

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    reporter: "standard,json:output.json,junit:results.xml,sarif:results.sarif"

Group by pass/fail

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    group-by: "pass-fail"

Schema Validation

SchemaStore (automatic)

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schemastore: "true"

Local SchemaStore (air-gapped)

- run: git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/SchemaStore/schemastore.git
- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schemastore-path: "./schemastore"

Require schemas

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    require-schema: "true"

Syntax only (no schema validation)

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    no-schema: "true"

Map custom schemas to files

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schema-map: "**/package.json:schemas/package.schema.json,**/config.xml:schemas/config.xsd"

Advanced

Kitchen sink

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0
- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    only-changed: "true"
    exclude-dirs: "vendor,generated,testdata"
    ignore-files: ".prettierignore"
    schema-map: "**/app-config.json:schemas/app.schema.json"
    type-map: "**/inventory:ini,**/.env.*:env"
    reporter: "standard,junit:results.xml"
    schemastore: "true"

Map unrecognized files to a type

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    type-map: "**/inventory:ini,**/*.cfg:json"

Use outputs for conditional logic

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  id: validate
  continue-on-error: true
- run: |
    if [ "${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-failed }}" != "0" ]; then
      echo "😬 ${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-failed }} files failed"
      exit 1
    fi