Adobe Experience Platform Tags Extension Validator

Adobe Experience Platform Tags is a next-generation tag management solution enabling simplified deployment of marketing technologies. For more information regarding Tags, please visit our product website.

The extension validator helps extension developers validate that an extension package is well-structured. Namely, it verifies that:

1. The extension has a manifest (extension.json) matching the expected structure.
2. All referenced directories and files exist at the specified locations within the extension directory. The manifest's viewBasePath must point to an existing directory (not a file, and not a missing path); at least one file must exist under that path.

For more information about developing an extension for Tags, please visit our extension development guide.

Usage

This tool is currently integrated and automatically executed within other tools that extension developers typically use, namely the Extension Sandbox Tool and Extension Packager Tool. This is likely sufficient for most extension developers.

Running the Validator from the Command Line

Before running the validator, you must first have Node.js installed on your computer.

Once Node.js is installed, run the validator by executing the following command from the command line within your extension's directory:

npx @adobe/reactor-validator

Incorporating the Validator into Other Tools

If you would like to incorporate the validator into your own extension development tools, you may do so by first installing the validator as a dependency inside your tool's project:

npm i @adobe/reactor-validator

Once it has been installed as a dependency, import the validator and pass it an extension manifest object (this is the object exported from an extension.json file). If the value returned from the validator is undefined, then the extension appears to be well-formed; otherwise, the value will contain a description of the issue that was encountered.

Supported import paths: Only the documented entry points are supported. Deep imports (e.g. @adobe/reactor-validator/lib/validate) are not supported and will fail with ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED. Use one of these:

• Node: require('@adobe/reactor-validator') — scans the filesystem and validates
• Browser or bundled: import validate from '@adobe/reactor-validator/validate' — validates against a provided file list

const validate = require('@adobe/reactor-validator');
const error = validate(require('./extension.json'));

// Will be undefined if no error was found.
console.log(error);

Using the validator in a browser or bundled app

Browser (or other non-Node) consumers should use the @adobe/reactor-validator/validate subpath so they do not pull in Node-only code. The default export (@adobe/reactor-validator) scans the filesystem and is for Node only.

The validate function has the signature (extensionDescriptor, fileList):

• extensionDescriptor: The parsed extension manifest (e.g. from extension.json).
• fileList: An array of relative path strings for every file in the extension package (e.g. from a folder picker or zip). The caller is responsible for gathering this list; the validator only checks that required paths are present.
• Returns: undefined if valid, or an error string on the first problem found.

import validate from '@adobe/reactor-validator/validate';

const error = validate(manifestJson, Array.from(filesMap.keys()));
if (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

Webpack alias for ajv: The validate module depends on ajv-draft-04, which in turn requires ajv and resolves internal paths (e.g. ajv/dist/core). If your app does not list ajv as a direct dependency, add a resolve alias so the bundler uses the validator's ajv:

• Resolve via an exported path (e.g. @adobe/reactor-validator/validate), not package.json, to avoid ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED.
• Alias to the package directory of ajv, not to ajv.js, so subpaths resolve and Watchpack ENOTDIR errors are avoided.

In your webpack config:

const path = require('path');

// Inside module.exports or your config object:
resolve: {
  alias: {
    'ajv': path.join(
      path.dirname(path.dirname(require.resolve('@adobe/reactor-validator/validate'))),
      'node_modules',
      'ajv'
    )
  }
}

Alternatively, add ajv as a direct dependency in your project with the current version used here so the alias is unnecessary. However, this is very brittle. This project reserves the right to use a different version of ajv at any time.

Contributing

Contributions are welcomed! Read the Contributing Guide for more information.

To get started:

1. Install node.js.
2. Clone the repository.
3. After navigating into the project directory, install project dependencies by running npm install.

To manually test your changes, first run the following command from the sandbox tool directory:

npm link

Then, in a directory containing an extension (any extension you would like to use for testing), run the following command:

npx @adobe/reactor-validator

Npx will execute the sandbox tool using your locally linked code rather than the code published on the public npm repository.

Licensing

This project is licensed under the Apache V2 License. See LICENSE for more information.