Validation Schemas

CARE allows administrators and researchers to define custom validation schemas that enforce specific file format requirements for submissions. This enables project-specific or assignment-specific validation rules (e.g., “PDF + LaTeX ZIP” for exposés) to ensure submissions meet your study’s requirements.

Note

For developers working with the validation code, see Validation.

Overview

Validation schemas are JSON configuration files that define:

Which files are required in a submission
File naming patterns (using regular expressions)
ZIP archive content requirements
Allowed additional file types

When users upload submissions, CARE validates them against the selected schema before accepting them into the system. This prevents broken or incomplete submissions and ensures consistent submission formats across your study.

Creating a Validation Schema

A Validation schemas is structured as follows:

Top-level attributes

version: Schema version (e.g., "0.0.1")
name: Schema name (e.g., "UKP Exposé Submission Validator")
description: Description of this schema
type: Must be set to "validation"
rules: Object containing validation rules (see below)

Rules object

additionalFilesAreAllowed: Boolean indicating if unspecified files are accepted at the root level. Set to false to enforce strict file requirements.
requiredFiles: A list of required file definitions (see below)

Each requiredFiles entry supports

name: Name identifier for this file type
pattern: Regex pattern matched against the filename (e.g., ".*\\.pdf$")
description: Description of the file’s purpose
required: Boolean indicating whether the file must be present
includeFiles (optional): A list of validation rules for ZIP archive contents
allowAdditionalFiles (optional): A list of allowed file extensions inside ZIP archives (e.g., ["jpg", "png", "pdf"])

ZIP validation rules inside includeFiles

name: Name identifier for this file
pattern: Regex pattern for ZIP entries (e.g., "Expose\\.tex$")
description: Description of the expected file
required: Boolean indicating whether the file must be present
maxMatches (optional): Maximum number of allowed matches

Example: PDF Only Validation

Goal: Ensure a required PDF is present with no additional files.

{
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "name": "PDF Only Validator",
  "description": "Validates that exactly one PDF file is present",
  "type": "validation",
  "rules": {
    "additionalFilesAreAllowed": false,
    "requiredFiles": [
      {
        "name": "PDF",
        "description": "Main PDF document",
        "pattern": ".*\\.pdf$",
        "required": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example: PDF + LaTeX ZIP Validation

Goal: Require one PDF and one ZIP archive containing LaTeX sources with specific files.

{
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "name": "Exposé Submission Validator",
  "description": "Validation schema for Exposé LaTeX submissions",
  "type": "validation",
  "rules": {
    "additionalFilesAreAllowed": false,
    "requiredFiles": [
      {
        "name": "PDF",
        "description": "Main PDF of the Exposé",
        "pattern": ".*\\.pdf$",
        "required": true
      },
      {
        "name": "ZIP",
        "description": "Raw Latex Files for the Exposé",
        "pattern": ".*\\.zip$",
        "required": true,
        "allowAdditionalFiles": ["jpeg", "jpg", "png", "pdf", "bst", "cls"],
        "includeFiles": [
          {
            "name": "expose",
            "description": "Main expose LaTeX document",
            "pattern": "Expose\\.tex$",
            "required": true,
            "maxMatches": 1
          },
          {
            "name": "bibliography",
            "description": "Bibliography file for the exposé",
            "pattern": "ExposeBibliography\\.bib$",
            "required": true,
            "maxMatches": 1
          },
          {
            "name": "config",
            "description": "TUDa thesis configuration file",
            "pattern": "tudathesis\\.cfg$",
            "required": true,
            "maxMatches": 1
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Uploading Validation Schemas

Validation schemas can be uploaded via the Configuration Dashboard:

Log in to CARE with an admin account
Navigate to the Configuration section in the dashboard
Upload your validation schema JSON file
The schema will be available for selection during submission uploads

Note

Default validation schemas are stored in the database via migrations. Example: backend/db/migrations/20250919125851-basic-configuration-expose_validation.json

Validation Behavior

The validator automatically handles several common scenarios:

System files: Filters out system metadata files such as:
- .DS_Store (macOS)
- __MACOSX/ (macOS metadata directory)
- Thumbs.db, desktop.ini (Windows)
- Files starting with ._ (macOS resource forks)
ZIP folder structure: If a ZIP contains a single top-level folder, this folder is automatically stripped during validation. Files must be located either at the ZIP root or within a single top-level directory.
Error reporting: The validator stops at the first error encountered and reports it to the user. It does not exhaustively check all possible errors.