EOAP Validator for VS Code

Right-click a .cwl file in Explorer or its editor and choose EOAP validation. The extension opens the file and, if its $graph contains multiple workflows, asks you to select a workflow ID using VS Code's native picker. Cancelling the picker stops validation. Single-workflow documents use the validator's automatic selection.

Validation issues appear as underlines in the source editor and entries in Problems. Hover an underline for the rule message and suggested fix. Positions come from the validator. Missing required document metadata fields are marked at an existing metadata key, with an explicit explanation that the field is absent. Other findings without usable local source positions are reported in Output → EOAP Validator, alongside the full JSON report. There is no custom report panel. The validator does not execute workflows.

Install

Use VS Code 1.95 or newer. For the default managed validator, Python 3.10+ with venv and pip must be available on the workspace host. The VSIX bundles vendor/eoap_validator-0.2.0-py3-none-any.whl, its license and notice. On first use, the extension installs this wheel into private VS Code extension storage. Its transitive Python dependencies are downloaded using your configured pip index; Python and those dependencies are not bundled.

On Linux or macOS, download and install the VSIX from the GitHub release:

curl -fL -o /tmp/eoap-validator-vscode-0.2.0.vsix \
  https://github.com/eoap/eoap-validator-vscode/releases/download/0.2.0/eoap-validator-vscode-0.2.0.vsix &&
code --install-extension /tmp/eoap-validator-vscode-0.2.0.vsix

code --install-extension takes a local VSIX path, so download the file before installing it. You can also download it from the release page and choose Extensions: Install from VSIX... in the Command Palette.

To build from a checkout, install Node.js 22 or newer and npm, then run:

npm ci
npm run package
code --install-extension eoap-validator-vscode-0.2.0.vsix

Use a trusted workspace. Remote SSH, WSL and Dev Containers run the extension and Python on the workspace host. Browser-only and virtual workspaces are unsupported.

Settings

Setting	Default / purpose
eoapValidator.executable	Empty: install and use the bundled wheel
eoapValidator.pythonExecutable	Empty: python3 on POSIX, python on Windows
eoapValidator.arguments	Prefix arguments for a custom executable only
eoapValidator.profiles	["eoap-package", "metadata"]
eoapValidator.stagingFile	Optional JSON path; requires eoap-staging profile
eoapValidator.failOn	error, or warning
eoapValidator.validateOnSave	false; enable to refresh the last selected package on tracked saves
eoapValidator.timeoutSeconds	120

A custom executable bypasses managed installation. For example:

{
  "eoapValidator.executable": "/path/to/venv/bin/python",
  "eoapValidator.arguments": ["-m", "eoap_validator"]
}

Arguments are passed without shell expansion. Relative staging paths resolve against the root CWL directory. Setup commands time out after ten minutes.

Validation lifecycle

Validation reads saved files; modified tracked files require saving first. Edits and filesystem changes to tracked sources clear stale diagnostics. Running validation again replaces the previous session and stops its active process. Optional validation on save reuses the selected workflow ID; invoke the context menu again to change it after modifying the workflow graph.

The validator's dependency manifest is partial. Changes to imports/includes not reported as dependencies require manual revalidation. Concurrent changes to newly discovered dependencies cannot always be detected. Nonlocal findings are retained in Output. Python code-point columns are converted to VS Code UTF-16 positions. Windows process termination covers the direct process; POSIX also terminates its process group.

Development

npm run check compiles, lints and runs the Node tests. npm run package also builds the VSIX. Tests cover process execution, report schema validation, bundled installation, workflow selection and extension interactions using a VS Code API double. Interactive desktop and remote-host testing are separate checks.

schemas/report.json is the validator's report schema 1.0. See vendor/README.md for the bundled official PyPI artifact's provenance.

Refresh the pinned wheel and its license/notice files with:

task retrieve-validator
# Override Python if needed (for example, on Windows):
task retrieve-validator PYTHON=python

The task uses pip download --no-deps from PyPI and verifies the SHA-256 pinned in vendor/validator.json before replacing the bundled files. To upgrade, update the version, filename and published checksum in that file, retrieve the wheel, and run task to check the extension. Managed environments are keyed by version and checksum so a refreshed artifact gets a fresh environment.

Documentation

Start with the first-package tutorial. For specific tasks, use the how-to guides for installation, validator environments, staging, validation on save, and troubleshooting. Look up commands and settings in the reference, or read the validation lifecycle explanation to understand how results stay current.

To preview the documentation site in a separate Python environment:

python3 -m venv build/docs-venv
build/docs-venv/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements-docs.txt
build/docs-venv/bin/python -m mkdocs serve

On Windows, use build\docs-venv\Scripts\python.exe. To check the site without serving it, run the same Python executable with -m mkdocs build --strict --site-dir build/docs.