Validation & limits

Input validation rules and service limits for Style guide API.

These constraints apply to patterns, suggestions, context_include, context_exclude, and description.

Forbidden characters

Forbidden characters are validated per-field.

Field(s)	Forbidden characters	Notes
patterns, suggestions, context_include, context_exclude	# ; [ ] < > { } and control characters: \n \t \b \r \a \f \v	Control characters are rejected even if escaped.
description	# [ ] < > { } and control characters: \n \t \b \r \a \f \v	Same as above, but ; is allowed.

Length limits

Limits are Unicode character count.

The limit is the total length across all values when the field is an array.

Field	Max length (Unicode chars)	Notes
patterns	150	If this is an array, sum of all items must be ≤ 150.
suggestions	150	If this is an array, sum of all items must be ≤ 150.
context_include	150	If this is an array, sum of all items must be ≤ 150.
context_exclude	150	If this is an array, sum of all items must be ≤ 150.
description	200	Always checked as a single string.

Uniqueness and cross-field rules

Constraint	What it means
Unique patterns	All patterns values must be unique within a rule.
Unique suggestions	All suggestions values must be unique within a rule.
Pattern vs suggestion collision	A patterns value cannot equal any suggestions value.
Context vs pattern collision (include)	No context_include item may equal any patterns item.
Context vs pattern collision (exclude)	No context_exclude item may equal any patterns item.
Include vs exclude collision	No context_exclude item may equal any context_include item.
No substring overlap in context_include	No context_include value may be a substring of another context_include value.
No substring overlap in context_exclude	No context_exclude value may be a substring of another context_exclude value.
Rule-level duplication in a file	Two rules with the same patterns + context_include combination are not allowed within the same file.

Limits

Limit	Value
Maximum rules per language	2,000