Editor setup¶

cliffy publishes a JSON schema for manifests. An editor that understands it completes keys, shows their descriptions and marks mistakes while you type.

VS Code¶

Install the YAML extension, then point a manifest at the schema with a comment on its first line.

Schema from GitHubLocal schema

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jaykv/cliffy/refs/heads/main/examples/cliffy_schema.json
name: mycli
version: 0.1.0

This always uses the schema of the latest development version.

$ cli init mycli --raw --json-schema
+ mycli.yaml
+ cliffy_schema.json

This writes cliffy_schema.json, which matches your installed version, next to a new manifest that already has the comment:

# yaml-language-server: $schema=cliffy_schema.json

Other editors that use yaml-language-server, such as Neovim and Helix, read the same comment.

Highlighting Python inside YAML¶

Run scripts are Python inside YAML strings, which editors show as plain text. The YAML Embedded Languages extension for VS Code adds syntax highlighting to those blocks.

Checking from the command line¶

$ cli validate mycli.yaml
Manifest mycli.yaml is valid

cli validate checks the same schema, plus the requires of the manifest and the code that is generated from it. See the CLI reference.