Validation

Validation annotations are emitted on generated record components and method parameters by default. Disable them with generateValidationAnnotations=false.

Validation style

The default style is Jakarta Bean Validation:

<validationStyle>JAKARTA</validationStyle>

import jakarta.validation.constraints.NotNull;
import jakarta.validation.constraints.Size;

To use Avaje Validator constraint annotations instead:

<validationStyle>AVAJE</validationStyle>

import io.avaje.validation.constraints.NotNull;
import io.avaje.validation.constraints.Size;

Add the Avaje Validator constraints dependency to the consuming project:

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.avaje</groupId>
  <artifactId>avaje-validator-constraints</artifactId>
  <version>${avaje.validator.version}</version>
</dependency>

Supported constraints

Schema keywords map to constraint annotations on the generated record components:

Both OpenAPI 3.0 (exclusiveMinimum: true) and 3.1 (exclusiveMinimum: <number>) exclusive-bound forms are honoured. multipleOf has no Bean Validation equivalent and is not mapped.

@NotNull is not emitted for a component that is generated as a primitive (a required, non-nullable scalar — see Primitive mapping), since a primitive is intrinsically non-null. A field that is both required and nullable: true is annotated @Nullable (not @NotNull).

Nested validation

Record components whose type is a generated model — directly, or as the element of a List/Map — are annotated @Valid so Bean Validation cascades into them:

public record Order(
  @NotNull @Valid Customer customer,
  @Valid List<Item> items,
  @Valid Map<String,Item> attachments,
  List<String> labels,
  OrderStatus status
) {}

References to enums and scalar types are not cascaded. Jakarta places @Valid in the root jakarta.validation package; the Avaje style uses io.avaje.validation.constraints.Valid.

Disabling validation

<generateValidationAnnotations>false</generateValidationAnnotations>

Use this when the generated DTOs must match hand-written records that do not carry validation annotations, or when validation is enforced elsewhere. See DTO Models.