tool-schema-validator

Validate LLM tool/function-call definitions and model-produced arguments — JSON-Schema subset checks, LLM-pitfall linting, path-precise argument errors, and a coercion mode for sloppy model output. Zero runtime dependencies, strict TypeScript.

Quickstart

import { validateToolDef, lintToolDef, validateArguments } from "tool-schema-validator";

const tool = {
  name: "search_products",
  description: "Search the product catalog by query and category.",
  parameters: {
    type: "object",
    properties: {
      query: { type: "string", description: "search text", minLength: 1 },
      limit: { type: "integer", description: "max results", minimum: 1, maximum: 50 },
    },
    required: ["query"],
  },
};

validateToolDef(tool); // => { valid: true, errors: [] }
lintToolDef(tool);     // => [] (good name, has description, properties documented)

validateArguments(tool.parameters, { query: "mouse", limit: "10" });
// => { valid: false, errors: [{ path: "parameters.limit", message: "expected type integer, got string" }] }

validateArguments(tool.parameters, { query: "mouse", limit: "10" }, { coerce: true });
// => { valid: true, errors: [], coerced: { query: "mouse", limit: 10 } }

API

validateToolDef(tool): ValidationResult

Structural check: is tool.parameters a well-formed JSON-Schema subset (valid type, properties shape, required string array, enum array, recursive items)? Returns { valid, errors: ValidationError[] } with path-precise errors.

lintToolDef(tool, options?): LintWarning[]

Best-practice warnings for LLM tool-calling specifically (all structurally valid schemas can still fail this):

• missing description on the tool or on a property
• ambiguous tool names (do, run, execute, handle, process, go, action, call)
• more than options.maxProperties (default 12) top-level properties
• a required field with no matching entry in properties

validateArguments(schema, args, options?): ArgValidationResult

Validates model-produced arguments against a JsonSchema. Errors are path-precise (parameters.limit, parameters.items[2].id). With options.coerce: true, attempts to coerce common sloppy-model mismatches before failing: string "42" -> number 42, string "true"/"false" -> boolean, number/boolean -> string. Returns coerced (the possibly- coerced value) only when coerce is requested.

Limits

• Supports a subset of JSON Schema: type, properties, required, enum, items, minimum/maximum, minLength/maxLength, description. No $ref, oneOf/anyOf/allOf, pattern, or additionalProperties schema enforcement (the field is accepted but not enforced).
• Coercion is intentionally narrow (numeric strings, boolean strings, primitive-to-string) — it will not coerce, say, a JSON string into an object.
• Linting is opinionated toward what makes tools easier for models to call correctly, not a general JSON-Schema style linter.

Part of the ferrow-toolkit collection · Sponsored by Ferrow