Contract rule types

Rules let you express conditions that go beyond simple column types. This page lists the rule categories available in a VendorGate contract.

Value checks

Validate numeric or categorical values:

• Minimum value
• Maximum value
• Value between two bounds
• Not equal to a specific value
• Allowed values
• Disallowed values

Format and length checks

Validate the shape of string data:

• Regular expression pattern
• Valid email
• Valid URL
• Valid date
• Starts with, ends with, contains, or does not contain a value
• Minimum or maximum length

Uniqueness and relationship checks

Validate values across rows:

• Unique values in a single column
• Composite unique values across multiple columns
• Consistency within a group
• Sequence checks
• Balance checks, such as debits equaling credits
• Duplicate-row detection
• Distinct-value limits
• Reference completeness: ensure that expected keys from a lookup dataset are present in the file

Expression and reference checks

Validate a row using flexible expressions or reference data:

• expression: evaluate a custom expression against record fields
• reference_exists: require a value to exist in a lookup dataset
• reference_not_in_dataset: require a value to not exist in a lookup dataset

File-level checks

Validate the overall file:

• Minimum or maximum row count
• Minimum or maximum file size
• Forbidden columns
• Whether extra columns are allowed

Statistics and anomaly detection

You can compute statistics such as row count, averages, null percentages, and standard deviations. Statistics can also be computed from expressions. You can then define:

• anomaly rules that flag unexpected changes between runs
• statistic_expression rules that evaluate a boolean expression against finalized statistics

Severity settings

Each rule can be set to fail the run or only warn. Use warnings for checks you want to track without stopping delivery, and failures for checks that should block bad data.

Example

An invoice contract might use:

• A min_value rule to ensure amount is greater than zero.
• An allowed_values rule to restrict currency to USD, EUR, or GBP.
• A unique rule to ensure invoice_id is not repeated within the file.
• A min_row_count file rule to reject empty files.