Chocolatey Community Validation Extension Is Now Available!

Recently we released a new Community project called Chocolatey Community Validation that extends Chocolatey CLI by introducing additional rules that will be applied when creating packages.

What Is Chocolatey Community Validation?

Chocolatey Community Validation is a native extension that extends certain parts of Chocolatey CLI to give improved or new features to Chocolatey CLI.

The project is focused on bringing rules that Chocolatey packages would normally have to adhere to when being hosted on the Chocolatey Community Repository, to the choco pack command running locally.

Think of it as a limited version of the Chocolatey Community Repository Package Validator, now being available to you locally when creating your packages.

Want to see the extension in action? Watch our Product Spotlight Livestream!

Why Was This Extension Created?

The Chocolatey Community Validation extension was created to:

• Provide a faster indication of a package being accepted to the Chocolatey Community Repository,
• To give package maintainers the ability to use similar validation rules for their own repositories, and
• To encourage a more open nature of the validation rules that are implemented.

What Is Currently Available?

This is the first release of Chocolatey Community Validation, so the initial ruleset we have added is small. Currently, the only implementation are the validation rule requirements we use in Package Validator for metadata/nuspec files with the exception of validating URLs. The implented rules are as follows:

• CPMR0001 - Copyright Character Count Below 4.
• CPMR0002 - Description Missing
• CPMR0007 - License Url Missing / License Acceptance is True
• CPMR0009 - ProjectUrl Missing
• CPMR0014 - Tags Have Commas
• CPMR0017 - Deprecated Packages Must Have A Dependency
• CPMR0019 - Nuspec Contains Templated Values
• CPMR0020 - Nuspec Contains Email
• CPMR0023 - Tags Missing
• CPMR0024 - Prerelease information shouldn’t be included as part of Package Id
• CPMR0026 - Description Character Count Above 4000
• CPMR0029 - Package Id Does Not End With .config
• CPMR0030 - Description Contains Invalid Markdown Heading
• CPMR0032 - Description Character Count Below 30

These new rules will be used automatically when the extension is installed and choco pack is called, as well as when pushing a package to the Chocolatey Community Repository.

What’s Next?

The main focus going forward for this Community extension is to implement more rules that are currently being used by Package Validator, as well as seeking feedback from our Customers and Community on other rules they would like to see.

Want To Give It a Try?

Install Chocolatey Community Validation with Chocolatey CLI!

choco install chocolatey-community-validation.extension

After install, run choco pack on any packages you have previously created. If they have invalid metadata fields this will be shown for errors such as a required field being empty, using an email address in the metadata, etc._.

Find out more about the rules we’ve implemented in our Release Notes.