Operations Shared (all languages) active any

Configuration is semantically validated before it is applied

ops-022

Intent

Prevent misconfiguration outages by rejecting config that parses syntactically but is invalid semantically or structurally for the real system.

Applicability

Applies when the diff adds or changes configuration schemas, options binding, environment parsing, external config loading, or validation hooks.

What to inspect

Config structs or schemas, range checks, nested validation, environment parsing, and external config deserialization.

Pass criteria

The changed configuration path validates required keys, types, nested objects, ranges, and other semantic constraints before the running system uses the config.

Fail criteria

The diff loads config from process.env, files, or bound options and trusts it after syntax parsing or binding alone, with no visible semantic or nested validation.

Do not flag

Hard-coded literals, test fixtures, or visible shared validators that already own the config contract.

Confidence guidance

HIGH when the load path and missing validation are directly visible. MEDIUM when validation may exist in shared helpers. LOW when the control plane validates config outside the repo.

Remediation

Parse config through a schema or validator that checks semantic constraints before application code consumes it.

Pass example

const EnvSchema = z.object({
  DATABASE_URL: z.string().url(),
  PORT: z.coerce.number().int().min(1).max(65535),
});
const env = EnvSchema.parse(process.env);

Fail example

const config = {
  databaseUrl: process.env.DATABASE_URL as string,
  port: Number(process.env.PORT || 3000),
};