Validate Configs Action

June 25, 2026 · View on GitHub

A GitHub Action that catches broken config files in your PRs before they cause problems. Supports JSON, YAML, TOML, XML, INI, HCL, JSONC, KDL, Justfiles, and a bunch more. Errors show up as inline annotations on the PR diff so you know exactly what broke and where.

If a file has a $schema or XSD declaration, it gets schema-validated too. You can also enable SchemaStore for automatic schema lookups on common files like package.json and tsconfig.json.

Quick Start

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2

Add it to any job with actions/checkout and it'll validate every config file in the repo.

Usage

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2

Only validate changed files

If you've got a big repo, you probably don't want to validate everything on every PR:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0
- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    only-changed: "true"

You need fetch-depth: 0 so git can figure out which files actually changed.

Exclude directories

Skip the stuff you don't care about:

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    exclude-dirs: "vendor,testdata,node_modules"

Respect ignore files

Already have a .dockerignore or .prettierignore? Use those same patterns to skip files:

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    ignore-files: ".dockerignore,.prettierignore"

SchemaStore

SchemaStore is a community catalog of JSON Schemas for common config files. Turn it on and you get schema validation for hundreds of files out of the box:

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schemastore: "true"

Outputs

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  id: validate
  continue-on-error: true
- run: |
    echo "Files validated: ${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-validated }}"
    echo "Files failed: ${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-failed }}"

Inputs

Input	Default	Description
`search-paths`	`"."`	Space-separated dirs or files to scan
`exclude-dirs`	`""`	Comma-separated dirs to skip
`exclude-file-types`	`""`	Comma-separated file types to skip (e.g. `csv,xml`)
`file-types`	`""`	Only validate these file types. Can't use with `exclude-file-types`
`depth`	`""`	Recursion depth. `0` means don't recurse
`reporter`	`"standard"`	Output format. Options: `standard`, `json`, `junit`, `sarif`, `github`. Use `type:path` for file output, comma-separate for multiple
`group-by`	`""`	Group output: `filetype`, `directory`, or `pass-fail`
`quiet`	`"false"`	Suppress stdout
`globbing`	`"false"`	Use glob patterns in `search-paths`. Can't combine with `exclude-dirs`/`exclude-file-types`/`file-types`
`require-schema`	`"false"`	Fail files that could have a schema but don't declare one
`no-schema`	`"false"`	Skip all schema validation, syntax only
`schemastore`	`"false"`	Auto-lookup schemas from the embedded SchemaStore catalog
`schemastore-path`	`""`	Path to a local SchemaStore clone (for air-gapped envs). Implies `schemastore`
`type-map`	`""`	Map globs to file types: `pattern:type` (e.g. `**/inventory:ini`)
`schema-map`	`""`	Map globs to schemas: `pattern:schema_path` (e.g. `**/config.json:schemas/config.schema.json`)
`only-changed`	`"false"`	Only check files changed in the current PR
`gitignore`	`"false"`	Skip files matched by `.gitignore`
`ignore-files`	`""`	Comma-separated list of gitignore-style pattern files to use as filters (e.g. `.dockerignore,.prettierignore`)

Supported file types

csv, editorconfig, env, hcl (.tf, .tfvars), hocon, ini, json, jsonc, justfile, kdl, plist, properties, sarif, toml, toon, xml, yaml

Plus ~90 well-known filenames (.babelrc, tsconfig.json, Pipfile, pom.xml, etc.) are auto-detected even without a file extension.

Outputs

Output	Description
`files-validated`	Total files scanned
`files-failed`	Files that failed validation
`exit-code`	`0` = success, `1` = validation errors, `2` = runtime error

Examples

Filtering

Only specific file types

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    file-types: "json,yaml"

Exclude file types

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    exclude-file-types: "csv,xml"

No recursion

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    depth: 0

Glob patterns

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    globbing: "true"
    search-paths: "**/*.json config/**/*.yaml"

Use existing ignore files

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    ignore-files: ".dockerignore,.prettierignore"

Reporters

GitHub annotations (inline on the PR diff)

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    reporter: "github"

JSON

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    reporter: "json"

Multiple reporters with file output

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    reporter: "standard,json:output.json,junit:results.xml,sarif:results.sarif"

Group by pass/fail

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    group-by: "pass-fail"

Schema Validation

SchemaStore (automatic)

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schemastore: "true"

Local SchemaStore (air-gapped)

- run: git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/SchemaStore/schemastore.git
- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schemastore-path: "./schemastore"

Require schemas

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    require-schema: "true"

Syntax only (no schema validation)

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    no-schema: "true"

Map custom schemas to files

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    schema-map: "**/package.json:schemas/package.schema.json,**/config.xml:schemas/config.xsd"

Advanced

Kitchen sink

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0
- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    only-changed: "true"
    exclude-dirs: "vendor,generated,testdata"
    ignore-files: ".prettierignore"
    schema-map: "**/app-config.json:schemas/app.schema.json"
    type-map: "**/inventory:ini,**/.env.*:env"
    reporter: "standard,junit:results.xml"
    schemastore: "true"

Map unrecognized files to a type

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  with:
    type-map: "**/inventory:ini,**/*.cfg:json"

Use outputs for conditional logic

- uses: Boeing/validate-configs-action@v2
  id: validate
  continue-on-error: true
- run: |
    if [ "${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-failed }}" != "0" ]; then
      echo "😬 ${{ steps.validate.outputs.files-failed }} files failed"
      exit 1
    fi