protovalidate

protovalidate is a series of libraries designed to validate Protobuf messages at runtime based on user-defined validation rules. Powered by Google's Common Expression Language (CEL), it provides a flexible and efficient foundation for defining and evaluating custom validation rules. The primary goal of protovalidate is to help developers ensure data consistency and integrity across the network without requiring generated code.

Note

protovalidate is the spiritual successor to protoc-gen-validate. It does not require any code generation and supports custom constraints.

We recommend that new and existing projects transition to using protovalidate instead of protoc-gen-validate.

Read our blog post if you want to learn more about the limitations of protoc-gen-validate and how we have designed protovalidate to be better.

What is this repository?

This repository is the core of the protovalidate project. It contains:

• The API definition: used to describe validation constraints
• Documentation: how to apply protovalidate effectively
• Migration tooling: incrementally migrate from protoc-gen-validate
• Examples: example .proto files using protovalidate
• Conformance testing utilities: for acceptance testing of protovalidate implementations

Implementations

Runtime implementations of protovalidate can be found in their own repositories:

• Go: protovalidate-go (beta release)
• C++: protovalidate-cc (beta release)
• Java: protovalidate-java (beta release)
• Python: protovalidate-python (beta release)
• TypeScript: protovalidate-ts (coming soon)

Interested in adding support for another language? Check out our Contributing Guidelines.

Usage

Import protovalidate

To define constraints within your Protobuf messages, import buf/validate/validate.proto into your .proto files:

syntax = "proto3";

package my.package;

import "buf/validate/validate.proto";

Build with buf

Add a dependency on buf.build/bufbuild/protovalidate to your module's buf.yaml:

version: v1
# <snip>
deps:
  - buf.build/bufbuild/protovalidate
# <snip>

After modifying your buf.yaml, don't forget to run buf mod update to ensure your dependencies are up-to-date.

Build with protoc

Add an import path (-I flag) pointing to the contents of the proto/protovalidate directory to your invocation of protoc:

protoc \
  -I ./vendor/protovalidate/proto/protovalidate \
  # <snip>

Implementing validation constraints

Validation constraints can be enforced using the buf.validate Protobuf package. The rules are specified directly in the .proto files.

Let's consider a few examples:

1. Scalar field validation: For a basic User message, we can enforce constraints such as a minimum length for the user's name.

   syntax = "proto3";
   
   import "buf/validate/validate.proto";
   
   message User {
     // User's name, must be at least 1 character long.
     string name = 1 [(buf.validate.field).string.min_len = 1];
   }

2. Map field validation: For a Product message with a map of item quantities, we can ensure that all quantities are positive.

   syntax = "proto3";
   
   import "buf/validate/validate.proto";
   
   message Product {
     // Map of item quantities, all quantities must be positive.
     map<string, int32> item_quantities = 1 [(buf.validate.field).map.values.int32.gt = 0];
   }

3. Well-known type (WKT) validation: For the User message, we can add a constraint to ensure the created_at timestamp is in the past.

   syntax = "proto3";
   
   import "google/protobuf/timestamp.proto";
   import "buf/validate/validate.proto";
   
   message User {
     // User's creation date must be in the past.
     google.protobuf.Timestamp created_at = 1 [(buf.validate.field).timestamp.lt_now = true];
   }

For more advanced or custom constraints, protovalidate allows for CEL expressions that can incorporate information across fields.

1. Field-level expressions: We can enforce that a products' price, sent as a string, includes a currency symbol like "$" or "£". We want to ensure that the price is positive and the currency symbol is valid.

   syntax = "proto3";
   
   import "buf/validate/validate.proto";
   
   message Product {
     string price = 1 [(buf.validate.field).cel = {
       id: "product.price",
       message: "Price must be positive and include a valid currency symbol ($ or £)",
       expression: "(this.startsWith('$') || this.startsWith('£')) && double(this.substring(1)) > 0"
     }];
   }

2. Message-level expressions: For a Transaction message, we can use a message-level CEL expression to ensure that the delivery_date is always after the purchase_date.

   syntax = "proto3";
   
   import "google/protobuf/timestamp.proto";
   import "buf/validate/validate.proto";
   
   message Transaction {
     google.protobuf.Timestamp purchase_date = 1;
     google.protobuf.Timestamp delivery_date = 2;
   
     option (buf.validate.message).cel = {
       id: "transaction.delivery_date",
       message: "Delivery date must be after purchase date",
       expression: "this.delivery_date > this.purchase_date"
     };
   }

3. Producing an error message in the expression: We can produce custom error messages directly in the CEL expressions. In this example, if the age is less than 18, the CEL expression will evaluate to the error message string.

   syntax = "proto3";
   
   import "buf/validate/validate.proto";
   
   message User {
     int32 age = 1 [(buf.validate.field).cel = {
       id: "user.age",
       expression: "this < 18 ? 'User must be at least 18 years old': ''"
     }];
   }

Check out examples for examples on both standard constraints and custom CEL constraints.

Validate Messages

Once the messages are annotated with constraints, use one of the supported language libraries to validate; no additional code generation necessary.

Documentation

protovalidate provides a robust framework for validating Protobuf messages by enforcing standard and custom constraints on various data types, and offering detailed error information when validation violations occur. For a detailed overview of all its components, the supported constraints, and how to use them effectively, please refer to our comprehensive documentation. The key components include:

• Standard Constraints: protovalidate supports a wide range of standard constraints for all field types as well as special functionality for the Protobuf Well-Known-Types. You can apply these constraints to your Protobuf messages to ensure they meet certain common conditions.

• Custom Constraints: With Google's Common Expression Language (CEL), protovalidate allows you to create complex, custom constraints to handle unique validation scenarios that aren't covered by the standard constraints at both the field and message level.

• Error Handling: When a violation occurs, protovalidateprovides detailed error information to help you quickly identify the source and fix for an issue.

protoc-gen-validate

protovalidate is the spiritual successor to protoc-gen-validate, offering all of the same functionality present in the original plugin, without the need for custom code generation, and the new ability to describe complex constraints in CEL.

protovalidate's constraints very closely emulate those in protoc-gen-validate to ensure an easy transition for developers. To migrate from protoc-gen-validate to protovalidate, use the provided migration tool to incrementally upgrade your .proto files.

Ecosystem

• Buf
• CEL Specification

Legal

Offered under the Apache 2 license.