kitelogik validate

Syntax-check every Rego policy file in the policies directory. Wraps opa check with the project layout convention so you don't have to remember the policy paths.

Synopsis

kitelogik validate [--path PATH]

Flag	Default	Meaning
--path PATH	auto-discover (see below)	Path to a policies directory

What it does

1. Resolves the policies directory — uses --path if given, otherwise walks upward from cwd looking for kitelogik/policies/ or policies/ (whichever appears first).
2. Globs **/*.rego under that directory.
3. Excludes any file ending in _test.rego — those go through kitelogik test instead.
4. Runs opa check against the remaining policy files.
5. Prints All N policy files are valid. on success, or forwards OPA's diagnostic on failure.

Example

$ kitelogik validate
Validating 7 policy files in /home/me/my-agent/policies...
All 7 policy files are valid.

$ echo $?
0

A syntax error surfaces verbatim from OPA:

$ kitelogik validate
Validating 7 policy files in /home/me/my-agent/policies...
1 error occurred: policies/financial.rego:14: rego_parse_error: unexpected ident token: ...

The exit code matches OPA's — typically 1 for parse errors.

OPA binary or Docker

validate calls opa check directly when an opa binary is on PATH. Otherwise it transparently re-runs the same check inside openpolicyagent/opa:latest via Docker, bind-mounting your policies directory read-only at /policies. See CLI overview for the full fallback story.

When to run it

• In CI, before merge — catches typos that would otherwise cause OPA to fail to start with the new bundle.
• Locally, after every Rego edit — much faster than kitelogik test when you just want to know "does this parse?".
• Before compliance — compliance reads policy files but assumes they parse; running validate first surfaces parse errors with a clear message.

validate does not check semantic correctness (whether the rule matches what you intended). Pair it with test for behavioural assertions and check for one-off dry-runs.

Related

• compile — generate Rego from YAML
• test — run unit tests over the policies directory
• check — dry-run a JSON event against the loaded policies