Real-Time Validation

Status: Current Last updated: 2026-04-16 22:27 EDT

The extension validates your CHAT file continuously as you type. Errors appear as underlined squiggles with diagnostic messages in the Problems panel — no need to save or run a separate command.

What gets validated

Category	Examples
Syntax	Malformed headers, invalid tier prefixes, missing terminators
Required structure	@UTF8, @Begin, @End, @Languages, @Participants
Participant consistency	Undeclared speakers, @ID field counts, role/language mismatches
Tier alignment	%mor word count vs main tier, %gra index consistency
Morphology format	POS tag syntax, feature syntax, compound structure
Grammar relations	Valid relation types, index ranges, ROOT presence
Timing bullets	Monotonicity, same-speaker overlap, start < end
Terminators	Missing or invalid utterance terminators

Diagnostic structure

Each diagnostic includes:

Error code (e.g., E301, E705) — links to the error reference
Severity — Error (red), Warning (yellow), Information (blue), Hint (gray)
Related information — points to the conflicting location (e.g., the @Participants header when a speaker is undeclared)

(SCREENSHOT: Editor showing validation errors with squiggles and Problems panel) Capture this: Open a CHAT file with deliberate errors (missing @End, undeclared speaker). Show the red squiggles and the Problems panel at the bottom.

Inlay hints

When the main tier and %mor tier have different word counts, inlay hints appear as muted inline annotations showing the alignment status.

When counts match, a checkmark appears. When they mismatch, the hint shows both counts with a cross mark, making it easy to spot alignment issues without running a separate command.

Toggle with talkbank.inlayHints.enabled setting.

Diagnostic tags

Some diagnostics use VS Code’s diagnostic tag system for visual styling:

Unnecessary — fade-out (dimmed text) for deprecated constructs
Deprecated — strikethrough for obsolete syntax

Severity filtering

The talkbank.validation.severity setting controls which diagnostics appear:

Value	Shows
`all` (default)	Errors, warnings, and information
`errorsAndWarnings`	Errors and warnings only
`errorsOnly`	Errors only

Validation pipeline

flowchart TD
    Change["Document Change"] --> Debounce["250ms Debounce"]
    Debounce --> Parse["Parse\n(tree-sitter)"]
    Parse --> Validate["Model Validation\n(~190 error codes)"]
    Validate --> Convert["Convert to\nLSP Diagnostics"]
    Convert --> Publish["Publish to\nProblems Panel"]

Changes are debounced at 250ms to avoid overwhelming the parser during rapid typing. After parsing, the full model validation pipeline runs (the same pipeline as chatter validate), producing diagnostics with error codes, spans, and related information.

Batchalign