🛡️ NestJS OpenAPI Validation

Stop repeating yourself. Validate your NestJS applications using only TypeScript and OpenAPI.

Why use this?

In a standard NestJS project, defining a single property often requires you to write it three times:

1. TypeScript: id: number; (For type safety)
2. Validation: @IsInt() (For class-validator)
3. Documentation: @ApiProperty() (For Swagger/OpenAPI)

This is redundant, error-prone, and a nightmare to maintain. nestjs-openapi-validation uses TypeScript inference to automatically generate validation rules and OpenAPI schemas. For most properties, the TypeScript definition is enough.

The "Before vs. After"

❌ The Standard Way (class-validator)

You have to manually sync decorators for every single field. Missing one @Expose() or @IsNumber() breaks your API or documentation.

class Item {
  @Expose() // Needed for response transformation
  @Type(() => Number) // Needed to ensure it's a number
  @IsNumber() // Validation
  @Min(0) // Logic
  @ApiProperty({ minimum: 0 }) // Documentation
  size?: number;
}

✅ The nestjs-openapi-validation Way

The library infers the validation and documentation from your types and the @OpenApiRegister() decorator.

@OpenApiRegister()
class Item {
  @ApiProperty({ minimum: 0 }) // Only add what can't be inferred
  size?: number;
}

✨ Features

• 🔄 Auto-sync validation - Your OpenAPI docs and validation logic stay perfectly in sync
• ⚡ Zero config - Works out of the box with existing NestJS + Swagger setups
• 🛠️ Zod-powered - Leverage Zod's robust validation and error reporting
• 📚 Rich validation - Support for enums, unions, nested objects, arrays, and more
• 🧯 Prevent data leaks - Blocks unexpected request fields so accidental extra fields (e.g., passwordHash, internalNotes) never leak
• 🛡️ Strict user input validation - Rejects user provided extra fields and enforces types/coercion so unintended data never reaches your code
• 🔍 Format validation - Email, URL, date-time, and custom pattern validation
• 🎨 Beautiful errors - Clear, actionable validation error messages

🚀 Quick Start

# Using npm
npm install nestjs-openapi-validation zod

# Using yarn
yarn add nestjs-openapi-validation zod

# Using pnpm
pnpm add nestjs-openapi-validation zod

Basic Setup

// package.json
{
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "nest start --watch --type-check",
  },
}

// nest-cli.json
{
  "$schema": "https://json.schemastore.org/nest-cli",
  "collection": "@nestjs/schematics",
  "sourceRoot": "src",
  "compilerOptions": {
    "builder": {
      "type": "swc",
      "options": {
        "stripLeadingPaths": false,
        "includeDotfiles": true,
      },
    },
    "deleteOutDir": true,
    "plugins": [
      {
        "name": "@nestjs/swagger",
        "options": {
          "introspectComments": true,
        },
      },
    ],
  },
}

// main.ts
import { ValidationPipe } from '@nestjs/common';
import { NestFactory } from '@nestjs/core';
import { DocumentBuilder, SwaggerModule } from '@nestjs/swagger';
// This is automatically generated thanks to @nestjs/swagger plugin
// defined in nest-cli.json
import metadata from './metadata';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';
import {
  OpenApiValidationInterceptor,
  OpenApiValidationPipe,
  getRegisteredOpenApiModels,
} from 'nestjs-openapi-validation';

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);

  const config = new DocumentBuilder()
    .setTitle('My API')
    .setDescription('API with automatic validation')
    .setVersion('1.0')
    .build();

  await SwaggerModule.loadPluginMetadata(metadata);
  const document = SwaggerModule.createDocument(app, config, {
    // Include models registered with @OpenApiRegister()
    extraModels: getRegisteredOpenApiModels(),
  });

  // Validate user input
  app.useGlobalPipes(new OpenApiValidationPipe(metadata, document));

  // Validate responses
  app.useGlobalInterceptors(
    new OpenApiValidationInterceptor(metadata, document),
  );

  await app.listen(3000);
}

Define DTOs

// user.dto.ts
import { ApiProperty } from '@nestjs/swagger';
import { OpenApiRegister } from 'nestjs-openapi-validation';

export enum UserRole {
  ADMIN = 'admin',
  USER = 'user',
  MODERATOR = 'moderator',
}

export class CreateUserDto {
  @ApiProperty({ minLength: 2, maxLength: 50 })
  name: string;

  @ApiProperty({ format: 'email' })
  email: string;

  @ApiProperty({ minimum: 18, maximum: 120 })
  age: number;

  @ApiProperty({ enum: UserRole })
  role: UserRole;

  @ApiProperty({ format: 'url' })
  website?: string;

  @ApiProperty({ pattern: /^[0-9]{10}$/.source })
  phone: string;

  tags?: string[];
}

// For DTOs not automatically discovered by the Swagger plugin
@OpenApiRegister()
export class SpecialUserDto {
  @ApiProperty({ minimum: 0, maximum: 120 })
  age?: number;

  name: string;
}

Use in Controllers

// user.controller.ts
import { Controller, Post, Body } from '@nestjs/common';
import { CreateUserDto } from './user.dto';

@Controller('users')
export class UserController {
  @Post()
  createUser(@Body() userData: CreateUserDto) {
    // userData is automatically validated against your OpenAPI schema!
    return { message: 'User created', data: userData };
  }
}

🎯 Advanced Features

Union Types & OneOf

enum Status {
  active = 'ACTIVE',
  inactive = 'INACTIVE',
}

export class FlexibleQuery {
  @ApiProperty({
    oneOf: [{ enum: Object.values(Status) }, { type: 'string' }],
  })
  status: $`{Status}` | (string & {});

  @ApiProperty({
    oneOf: [
      { $ref: getSchemaPath(UserDto) },
      { $ref: getSchemaPath(AdminDto) }
    ]
  })
  profile: UserDto | AdminDto;
}

Nested Objects & Arrays

Complexe types are supported out of the box without decorators.

export class OrderDto {
  items: OrderItemDto[];
  customer: CustomerDto;
  orderDate: Date;
  stringMatrix: string[][];
  deeply: {
    nested {
      value: true;
    }
  }
}

Complex Validation Rules

export class ProductDto {
  @ApiProperty({
    minLength: 3,
    maxLength: 100,
    pattern: /^[a-zA-Z0-9\s-]+$/.source,
  })
  name: string;

  @ApiProperty({
    minimum: 0.01,
    maximum: 1000000,
  })
  price: number;

  @ApiProperty({
    minItems: 1,
    maxItems: 10,
    items: { type: 'string', maxLength: 50 },
  })
  tags: string[];

  @ApiProperty({ format: 'url' })
  imageUrl: string;
}

More

Check src/modules/app/app.dto.ts to see all tested features.

Registering Models

If you see an error like:

YourDto is not registered in your OpenAPI document. Use `@OpenApiRegister()` on your DTO to register it.

it means the DTO is not automatically discovered by the NestJS Swagger plugin. This commonly happens when the DTO is only referenced in unions (oneOf), used in dynamic contexts, lives outside of scanned modules, or is only used as an input query and never returned.

Use the @OpenApiRegister() decorator on such DTOs, and pass the registered models to Swagger via extraModels:

Ignoring Models

Use the @OpenApiIgnore() to skip specific model validation.

import { ApiProperty } from '@nestjs/swagger';
import {
  OpenApiRegister,
  getRegisteredOpenApiModels,
} from 'nestjs-openapi-validation';

@OpenApiRegister()
export class CustomDto {
  name: string;
  @ApiProperty({ minimum: 0, maximum: 120 })
  age?: number;
}

// main.ts (excerpt)
const document = SwaggerModule.createDocument(app, config, {
  extraModels: getRegisteredOpenApiModels(),
});

Once registered, request/response validation will work as expected for these models.

📊 Validation Support Matrix

| OpenAPI Feature | Supported | Zod Equivalent | | --------------------- | --------- | ------------------------ | | type: string | ✅ | z.string() | | type: number | ✅ | z.coerce.number() | | type: boolean | ✅ | z.coerce.boolean() | | type: array | ✅ | z.array() | | enum | ✅ | z.enum() | | oneOf | ✅ | z.union() | | $ref | ✅ | Nested schemas | | format: email | ✅ | z.string().email() | | format: url | ✅ | z.string().url() | | format: date-time | ✅ | z.string().datetime() | | minimum/maximum | ✅ | z.number().min().max() | | minLength/maxLength | ✅ | z.string().min().max() | | pattern | ✅ | z.string().regex() | | required fields | ✅ | Required vs optional |

🔧 Configuration

Both OpenApiValidationPipe and OpenApiValidationInterceptor accept two parameters:

1. metadata function — Generated by the @nestjs/swagger CLI plugin
2. OpenAPI document — Your Swagger document object

new OpenApiValidationPipe(metadata, document);
new OpenApiValidationInterceptor(metadata, document);

🚨 Error Handling

On validation failures, the library returns HTTP 400 (Bad Request) with Zod errors grouped by location (e.g., query, body, or response). Each group contains an issues array describing the problems.

// Example error response (request validation)
{
  "error": {
    "query": {
      "issues": [
        {
          "code": "invalid_type",
          "expected": "string",
          "message": "required",
          "path": ["str1"],
          "received": "undefined",
        },
        {
          "code": "invalid_string",
          "message": "Invalid datetime",
          "path": ["date"],
          "validation": "datetime",
        },
      ],
    },
  },
}

The same structure applies to response validation, where issues would be reported under response.

🧪 Testing

The library includes comprehensive tests covering all validation scenarios:

# Run tests
# Using yarn
yarn test

# Using npm
npm test

# Using pnpm
pnpm test

Example test case:

it('should validate email format', async () => {
  const res = await request(app.getHttpServer()).post('/users').send({
    name: 'John Doe',
    email: 'invalid-email', // This will fail
    age: 25,
  });

  expect(res.status).toBe(400);
  expect(res.body.message).toContain('Invalid email');
});

🛠️ Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/akronae/nestjs-openapi-validation.git

# Install dependencies
yarn install

# Build the library
yarn lib:build

# Run tests
yarn test

# Start development server
yarn dev

📋 Requirements

• Node.js >= 16
• NestJS >= 10
• TypeScript >= 5.1
• Zod >= 3.25

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a new branch for your feature or bugfix
3. Make your changes and write tests
4. Submit a pull request

📄 License

This project is MIT licensed.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• NestJS
• Zod
• Swagger/OpenAPI

⭐ Star this repo if you find it useful!

Made with ❤️ for the NestJS community