Validation Rules

Declare per-field validation on a model and Atomo enforces it in the data layer — on every create and update path, not just through GraphQL.

Declaring rules

Add a validation map to the model (field → pipe-separated rules):

export const schema = {
  models: {
    Contact: {
      tableName: 'contact',
      validation: {
        email:     'email',
        firstName: 'required|min:1|max:100',
        lastName:  'max:100',
      },
      // ...
    },
    Deal: {
      validation: {
        title:     'required|min:1|max:255',
        value:     'numeric|min:0',
        contactId: 'required|exists:contact,id',
      },
    },
  },
}

Supported rules

Rule	Checks
required	value present and non-empty
email	looks like an email (contains @ and .)
min:N	string length ≥ N, or number ≥ N
max:N	string length ≤ N, or number ≤ N
numeric	value is a number (or numeric string)
url	starts with http:// or https://
in:a,b,c	value is one of the listed options
exists:<table>,<col>	no-op in the validator — see note below

A field with no rule is unconstrained. Rules combine with | (all must pass).

Create vs. update (update-aware)

• On create, all declared rules are checked.
• On update, only rules for fields present in the patch are checked — so a partial update (e.g. just { stage }) does not fail on a required field it isn't touching, but a field it does set must still satisfy its rules (e.g. setting title: "" is rejected).

A failing rule aborts the operation with a VALIDATION_ERROR.

Referential integrity (exists: and foreign keys)

exists:<table>,<col> is intentionally a no-op in the synchronous validator (it can't run a DB query). Referential integrity is enforced by the database instead: Atomo generates FOREIGN KEY constraints for each belongsTo relationship, so creating a Deal with a contactId that doesn't reference a real contact row is rejected by Postgres. Declare the relationship in the model's relationships block and the FK is emitted automatically.

See also

• Modeling & Access
• Access Control (RBAC)