Validating Puppet Content

In this guide you’ll learn how the validate command works and how to use it to quickly validate your Puppet content.

What is a validator

A validator is a tool which can read and validate a codebase of Puppet content.

The configuration of a validator is almost identical to that of a normal tool. The only difference is that validators contain the can_validate: true property in their prm-config.yml configuration file.

All validation tools in a tool directory can be listed with the following command:

prm validate --list

How to use the validate command

Single tool validation

It is very easy to validate with a single tool. The command below shows an outline of the core arguments and flags necessary for content validation:

prm validate {author/tool} --codedir {location/of/code} --toolArgs="{any, tool, args}"

Here is an example of a command composed to validate epp content against the current directory, specifically, dir1 and dir2 as specified by the toolArgs flag.

prm validate puppetlabs/epp --codedir . --toolArgs="dir1, dir2"

When the command is executed PRM will validate with the epp tool using the appropriate tool arguments; the tool arguments in this case will instruct epp to validate content in the specified directories.

Multi-tool validation

PRM supports running multiple validation tools simultaneously. That’s where the validate.yml file comes in; it allows you to arrange validators into groups.

After grouping validators in a validate.yml file, you can easily run a group of validators from a single command. See below for usage of multi-tool validation.

Example of a validate.yml file

groups:
  - id: "ci"
    tools:
      - name: puppetlabs/epp
        args: [--example, args]
      - name: puppetlabs/parser
      - name: puppetlabs/puppet-lint
      - name: puppetlabs/onceover
  - id: "quick_validate"
    tools:
      - name: puppetlabs/epp
      - name: puppetlabs/rubocop
      - name: puppetlabs/parser
      - name: puppetlabs/r10k
  - id: "syntax_validation"
    tools:
      - name: puppetlabs/puppet-syntax
      - name: puppetlabs/metadata-json-lint
      - name: puppetlabs/puppet-lint

group flag

The --group {string} flag can be used to specify which group of validators to run, e.g.

prm validate --codedir . --group syntax_validation

When the command is executed PRM will validate with the syntax_validation group of validators.

workerCount flag

The --workerCount {int} flag can be used to specify how many validators will run simultaneously; e.g.

prm validate --codedir . --group syntax_validation --workerCount 2

When the command is executed PRM will validate with the syntax_validation group of validators, running a maximum of 2 validators concurrently.

serial flag

The --serial flag can be used to specify that only one validator should be run a time; e.g.

prm validate --codedir . --group syntax_validation --serial

When the command is executed PRM will validate with the syntax_validation group of validators, running one validator at a time.

Viewing validation results

PRM can currently output validation results to the terminal or to a log file.

Default output locations

See below the default output locations for each type of validation:

resultsView flag

The --resultsView {terminal|file} can be used to specify where you want the results of validation to output to.

prm validate puppetlabs/epp --codedir . --resultsView file

The results of this validation will be sent to a log file, overriding the default output for single tool validation, which is the terminal.

Example of multi-tool results outputted to the terminal:

$ prm validate --codedir . --group syntax_validation --resultsView terminal
3:23PM INF Found tool group: syntax_validation 
3:23PM INF Validating with the puppet-syntax tool
3:23PM INF Validating with the puppet-lint tool
3:23PM INF Validating with the metadata-json-lint tool
3:24PM ERR puppet-syntax:
---> syntax:manifests
---> syntax:templates
ERRORS:
Syntax error at 'Kernel' (file: templates/motd.epp, line: 5, column: 1)

      TOOL NAME      | VALIDATION EXIT CODE  
---------------------+-----------------------
  puppet-syntax      |                    1  
  metadata-json-lint |                    0  
  puppet-lint        |                    0  
3:24PM ERR Validation returned 1 error

Example of multi-tool results outputted to the log files:

# No need to specify the --resultsView flag here as it defaults to `file` for mulit-tool validation
$ prm validate --codedir . --group syntax_validation
3:49PM INF Found tool group: syntax_validation 
3:49PM INF Validating with the metadata-json-lint tool
3:49PM INF Validating with the puppet-syntax tool
3:49PM INF Validating with the puppet-lint tool

      TOOL NAME      | VALIDATION EXIT CODE |                                 FILE LOCATION
---------------------+----------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  puppet-syntax      |                    1 | .prm-validate/syntax_validation/puppet-syntax_2022_April_26_16-49-59.log
  metadata-json-lint |                    0 | .prm-validate/syntax_validation/metadata-json-lint_2022_April_26_16-49-59.log
  puppet-lint        |                    0 | .prm-validate/syntax_validation/puppet-lint_2022_April_26_16-49-59.log
3:49PM ERR Validation returned 1 error