Validation

Data validation is an integral part of any serious application. Tensei provides an easy-to-use way to make sure data passed to the API, or saved from the CMS is valid, sanitized and clean.

You may define validation rules on each resource field. Validation and sanitization is implemented using the indicative library.

Attaching rules

When defining a field on a resource, you may use the rules() method to attach indicative validation rules to the field:

import { resource, text } from '@tensei/core'

resource('User')
    .fields([
        text('Email')
            .rules('required', 'email')
    ])

These rules would be used to validate the field when creating and updating via the CMS and API.

Creation Rules

If you would like to define rules that only apply when a resource is being created, you may use the .creationRules() method:

import { resource, text } from '@tensei/core'

resource('User')
    .fields([
        text('Email')
            .creationRules('required', 'email')
    ])

Update Rules

If you would like to define rules that only apply when a resource is being created, you may use the .updateRules() method.

import { resource, text } from '@tensei/core'

resource('User')
    .fields([
        text('Email')
            .searchable()
            .sortable()
            .rules('max:255', 'email')
            .creationRules('required', 'unique:email')
            .updateRules('email')
    ])

Custom validation rules

To define custom validation rules, you may use a Tensie plugin. A Tensei plugin gives you access to the indicative library instance. Here's an example defining a slug validation rule:

import { tensei, plugin } from '@tensei/core'

export default tensei()
    .plugins([
        plugin('Custom slug validation rule')
            .register(({ indicative }) => {
                indicative.validator.extend('slug', {
                    async: false,
                    validate: (data, field) => data.original[field].match(
                        /^[a-z0-9]+(?:-[a-z0-9]+)*$/
                    ),
                })
            })
    ])

For more information about defining custom validation rules, please see the indicative documentation about this.

Custom validation messages

Sometimes the default validation error messages do not match your application's needs. For example, when validation fails for the email validation rule, the default validation message is email validation failed on email.

You may define custom validation messages on a resource using the .validationMessages() method.

resource('User')
    .fields([
        text('Email')
            .rules('required', 'email')
    ])
    .validationMessages({
        email: 'The email you provided was invalid.',
        required: 'The {{ field }} is required to create a user.'
    })

You can learn more about custom validation messages from the indicative documentation.

Sanitization rules

Cleaning up data sent to your server is a great way to ensure data integrity. You may define a sanitization rule on a field using the .sanitize() method:

resource('Post')
    .fields([
        text('Title')
            .rules('required', 'max:255')
            .sanitize('escape')
    ])