Conditional Validation in CLI-based Tracking Plan Management Alpha

This feature is in alpha as part of RudderStack’s Early Access Program, where we work with early users and customers to test new features and get feedback before making them generally available.

Note that these features are functional but can change as we improve them.

RudderStack’s Conditional Validation feature lets you define dynamic validation rules that adapt based on specific conditions or contexts. This powerful capability addresses a common challenge in data collection — maintaining strict data quality standards while accommodating legitimate variations in your event data structure.

Overview

In real-world applications, the structure and requirements of your event data often need to change based on context. For example:

• An ecommerce application that needs different product attributes for clothing versus electronics
• A global application that needs to handle address formats that vary by country
• A multi-tier service that needs to track different user properties based on subscription level

With the conditional validation feature, you can define different sets of property requirements based on a discriminating value. For example:

• Different address formats based on the country
• Varying product attributes based on the category
• Dynamic event properties based on the page type

Without conditional validation, you would need to either:

• Enforce all possible properties as optional, risking missing critical data
• Create separate events for each variation, leading to event proliferation
• Implement complex custom validation logic, increasing maintenance burden and complexity

Conditional validation solves these problems by letting you define context-aware validation rules directly in your Tracking Plan.

Key features

• Discriminator-based validation: Define different property requirements based on specific field values — RudderStack supports string and boolean discriminator types currently
• Flexible matching: Support for exact match, multiple values, and array-based matching
• Default cases: Define fallback requirements when no specific case matches
• Reusable custom type variants: Create reusable custom types with variants that you can reference across your Tracking Plans

When to use conditional validation

Use conditional validation when you need to:

• Handle regional variations: Different requirements based on country, region, or locale
• Support multiple categories: Varying attributes for different product types or user categories
• Context-specific validation: Different requirements based on user context or application state
• Flexible event tracking: Adapt event properties based on where or how the event occurs

Variants

Conditional validation in RudderStack involves using two kinds of variants:

1. Event rule variants

Event rule variants let you define different property requirements for the same event based on a discriminating property. For example, a Page Viewed event might require different properties when viewed on a product page versus a search results page.

See Event Rule Variants for more information.

2. Custom type variants

Custom type variants enable you to create reusable object definitions with varying property requirements. For example, an address object might have different required fields depending on the country.

See Custom Type Variants for more information.

Get started

1. Choose between event rule variants or custom type variants based on your needs.
2. Review the Conditional Validation YAML Reference guide for syntax and structure.
3. Define your variants using the appropriate YAML configuration.
4. Validate your configuration using the Rudder CLI.
5. Deploy your changes using standard Git workflows.

See also

• Event Rule Variants
• Custom Type Variants
• Conditional Validation YAML Reference

Questions? Contact us by email or on Slack