context lint & context fix

The lint command checks your context files for errors, inconsistencies, and missing metadata. The fix command auto-repairs violations that have deterministic fixes.

Lint

Usage

context lint

Options

Option	Description	Default
--context-dir <path>	Path to context files	./context
--format <type>	Output format: pretty, json, sarif, github, junit	Auto-detected
--rule <ruleId:severity>	Override rule severity (repeatable), e.g. governance/grain-required:error	—
--max-warnings <count>	Exit with error if warning count exceeds threshold	—
--output-file <path>	Write formatted output to a file	—
--fix	Automatically fix problems	Off
--fix-dry-run	Show what --fix would change without writing	Off
--cache	Only lint changed files (uses .contextkit-cache)	Off
--no-cache	Bypass the lint cache	—

Examples

# Lint all context files
context lint

# JSON output for CI
context lint --format json

# Override a rule severity
context lint --rule governance/grain-required:error

# Auto-fix issues
context lint --fix

# Fail if more than 5 warnings
context lint --max-warnings 5

# Write results to a file
context lint --format sarif --output-file results.sarif

Example output

context/models/users.osi.yaml
  3:5  warn   missing-description     Column "id" has no description
  7:5  warn   missing-description     Column "email" has no description
  12:3 error  invalid-relationship    Relationship "orders" references non-existent model

context/governance/sessions.governance.yaml
  1:1  error  missing-primary-key     No primary key defined

4 problems (2 errors, 2 warnings)

Fix

Usage

context fix

Options

Option	Description	Default
--context-dir <path>	Path to context files	./context
--format <type>	Output format: pretty, json	pretty
--dry-run	Show what would be fixed without writing files	Off
--db <url>	Database URL for data-aware fixes (postgres:// or path.duckdb)	—
--source <name>	Use a specific data_source from config	—

Examples

# Preview what would be fixed
context fix --dry-run

# Apply fixes
context fix

# Apply fixes with database awareness
context fix --db postgres://localhost/myapp

Example output

Dry run: 3 issue(s) would be fixed in 2 file(s):
  context/models/users.osi.yaml
  context/governance/orders.governance.yaml

Rule categories

The 37 built-in rules cover:

Category	Rules	Examples
Structure	8	missing-primary-key, missing-source, duplicate-column
Naming	6	naming-convention, reserved-word, model-name-match
Descriptions	5	missing-description, description-too-short
Relationships	7	invalid-relationship, orphan-foreign-key, circular-ref
Types	5	type-mismatch, missing-semantic-type, invalid-type
Formatting	6	trailing-whitespace, sort-columns, indent-style

Run context rules to see the full list with descriptions.

CI integration

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Lint context files
  run: context lint --format github

The github format produces annotations that appear inline on pull requests.

Next steps

• Auto-fix issues with context fix
• Build the manifest with context build