cypher_validator 0.9.1

Rust-accelerated Cypher query validator, generator, and NL-to-Cypher pipeline via GLiNER2

cypher_validator

A fast, schema-aware Cypher query validator and generator with optional GLiNER2 relation-extraction and Graph RAG support for LLM-driven graph database applications.

The core parser and validator are written in Rust (via pyo3 and maturin) for performance. The GLiNER2 integration layer is pure Python and is an optional add-on.

---

Table of contents

• Features
• Installation
• Quick start
• Core API
  • Schema
  • CypherValidator
  • ValidationResult
  • CypherGenerator
  • parse_query / QueryInfo
• GLiNER2 integration
  • NLToCypher ← start here
  • DB-aware query generation
  • EntityNERExtractor
  • GLiNER2RelationExtractor
  • RelationToCypherConverter
  • Neo4jDatabase
• LLM integration
  • Schema prompt helpers
  • extract_cypher_from_text
  • repair_cypher
  • format_records
  • few_shot_examples
  • cypher_tool_spec
  • GraphRAGPipeline
• What the validator checks
• Generated query types
• Performance
• Type stubs and IDE support
• Project structure
• Examples
• Development

---

Features

Capability	Description
Syntax validation	Parses Cypher with a hand-written PEG grammar (Pest) and surfaces clear syntax errors
Semantic validation	Checks node labels, relationship types, properties, endpoint labels, relationship direction, and unbound variables against a user-supplied schema
"Did you mean?" suggestions	Typos in labels and relationship types produce helpful suggestions (e.g. :Preson → did you mean :Person?) via capped Levenshtein edit-distance
Batch validation	validate_batch() validates many queries in parallel using Rayon, releasing the Python GIL for the duration
Query generation	Generates syntactically correct and schema-valid Cypher queries for 13 common patterns
Schema-free parsing	Extracts labels, relationship types, and property keys from any query without requiring a schema
Schema serialization	Schema.to_dict(), from_dict(), to_json(), from_json(), and merge() for complete schema lifecycle management
NL → Cypher	Converts GLiNER2 relation-extraction output to MATCH / MERGE / CREATE queries with automatic deduplication
DB-aware generation	db_aware=True looks up every extracted entity in Neo4j before query generation — existing nodes are MATCHed, new ones are CREATEd inline, preventing duplicate nodes
NER entity extraction	EntityNERExtractor wraps spaCy or any HuggingFace Transformers NER pipeline to enrich entity-label resolution during DB-aware generation
Zero-shot RE	Wraps the gliner2 model for natural-language relation extraction (optional)
LLM schema context	to_prompt(), to_markdown(), to_cypher_context() format the schema for LLM system prompts
Cypher extraction	extract_cypher_from_text() pulls Cypher out of any LLM response (fenced blocks, inline, plain text)
Self-repair loop	repair_cypher() feeds validation errors back to an LLM for iterative self-correction
Result formatting	format_records() renders Neo4j results as Markdown, CSV, JSON, or plain text for LLM context
Few-shot examples	few_shot_examples() auto-generates (description, Cypher) pairs for LLM prompting
Tool spec builder	cypher_tool_spec() produces Anthropic / OpenAI function-calling schemas for Cypher execution
Graph RAG pipeline	GraphRAGPipeline chains schema injection → Cypher generation → validation → execution → answer
Schema introspection	Neo4jDatabase.introspect_schema() discovers the live DB schema automatically
Type stubs	Full .pyi stub files for IDE autocompletion and mypy / pyright type checking

---

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python ≥ 3.8
• Rust toolchain (for building from source — rustup.rs)
• maturin (install via pip install maturin)

From source

# Clone the repository
git clone <repo-url>
cd cypher_validator

# Build and install in editable/development mode
maturin develop

# Or build an optimised release wheel
maturin build --release
pip install dist/cypher_validator-*.whl

Optional dependencies

# Neo4j driver (required for execute=True and db_aware=True)
pip install "cypher_validator[neo4j]"

# NER with spaCy (EntityNERExtractor.from_spacy)
pip install "cypher_validator[ner-spacy]"
python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm   # or en_core_web_trf for transformer accuracy

# NER with HuggingFace Transformers (EntityNERExtractor.from_transformers)
pip install "cypher_validator[ner-transformers]"

# Everything at once
pip install "cypher_validator[neo4j,ner]"

---

Quick start

from cypher_validator import Schema, CypherValidator, CypherGenerator, parse_query

# 1. Define your graph schema
schema = Schema(
    nodes={
        "Person": ["name", "age"],
        "Movie":  ["title", "year"],
    },
    relationships={
        # rel_type: (source_label, target_label, [properties])
        "ACTED_IN": ("Person", "Movie", ["role"]),
        "DIRECTED": ("Person", "Movie", []),
    },
)

# 2. Validate a single query
validator = CypherValidator(schema)
result = validator.validate("MATCH (p:Person)-[:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie) RETURN p.name, m.title")
print(result.is_valid)   # True

# 3. Validate with errors — get "did you mean?" suggestions
result = validator.validate("MATCH (p:Preson)-[:ACTEDIN]->(m:Movie) RETURN p")
print(result.is_valid)   # False
print(result.errors)
# ["Unknown node label: :Preson — did you mean :Person?",
#  "Unknown relationship type: :ACTEDIN — did you mean :ACTED_IN?"]

# 4. Validate multiple queries in parallel
results = validator.validate_batch([
    "MATCH (p:Person) RETURN p",
    "MATCH (p:Person)-[:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie) RETURN p.name",
    "MATCH (x:BadLabel) RETURN x",
])
for r in results:
    print(r.is_valid, r.errors)

# 5. Round-trip schema serialization
d = schema.to_dict()
schema2 = Schema.from_dict(d)

# … or as a JSON string
json_str = schema.to_json()
schema3  = Schema.from_json(json_str)

# 6. Merge two schemas
s_extra = Schema({"Director": ["name"]}, {"DIRECTED": ("Director", "Movie", [])})
merged  = schema.merge(s_extra)   # union of labels, types, and properties

# 7. Generate random valid queries
gen = CypherGenerator(schema, seed=42)
print(gen.generate("match_relationship"))
# MATCH (a:Person)-[r:ACTED_IN]->(b:Movie) RETURN a, r, b

# Generate many queries at once (avoids per-call Python overhead)
batch = gen.generate_batch("match_return", 100)

# 8. NL → Cypher with GLiNER2 (no boilerplate — this is the recommended entry point)
from cypher_validator import NLToCypher
pipeline = NLToCypher.from_pretrained("fastino/gliner2-large-v1", schema=schema)
cypher = pipeline(
    "Tom Hanks acted in Cast Away.",
    ["acted_in"],
    mode="merge",
)
# MERGE (a0:Person {name: $a0_val})-[:ACTED_IN]->(b0:Movie {name: $b0_val})
# RETURN a0, b0

# 10. Parse without a schema — also extracts property keys
info = parse_query("MATCH (p:Person)-[:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie) RETURN p.name, m.year")
print(info.is_valid)        # True
print(info.labels_used)     # ['Movie', 'Person']
print(info.rel_types_used)  # ['ACTED_IN']
print(info.properties_used) # ['name', 'year']

---

Core API

Schema

Describes the graph model: node labels with their allowed properties, and relationship types with their source label, target label, and allowed properties.

from cypher_validator import Schema

schema = Schema(
    nodes={
        "Person":  ["name", "age", "email"],
        "Company": ["name", "founded"],
        "City":    ["name", "population"],
    },
    relationships={
        # "REL_TYPE": ("SourceLabel", "TargetLabel", ["prop1", "prop2"])
        "WORKS_FOR":        ("Person",  "Company", ["since", "role"]),
        "LIVES_IN":         ("Person",  "City",    []),
        "HEADQUARTERED_IN": ("Company", "City",    []),
    },
)

Schema inspection methods:

schema.node_labels()               # ["City", "Company", "Person"]
schema.rel_types()                 # ["HEADQUARTERED_IN", "LIVES_IN", "WORKS_FOR"]
schema.has_node_label("Person")    # True
schema.has_rel_type("WORKS_FOR")   # True

schema.node_properties("Person")   # ["name", "age", "email"]
schema.rel_properties("WORKS_FOR") # ["since", "role"]
schema.rel_endpoints("WORKS_FOR")  # ("Person", "Company")

Round-trip serialization:

# Export to a plain Python dict (JSON-serializable)
d = schema.to_dict()
# {
#   "nodes": {"Person": ["name", "age", "email"], ...},
#   "relationships": {"WORKS_FOR": ["Person", "Company", ["since", "role"]], ...}
# }

# Reconstruct from a dict (e.g. loaded from JSON)
import json
with open("schema.json") as f:
    schema2 = Schema.from_dict(json.load(f))

# or directly
schema2 = Schema.from_dict(d)

JSON serialization (to_json / from_json):

# Serialise to a compact JSON string
json_str = schema.to_json()
# '{"nodes":{"Person":["age","email","name"],...},...}'

# Restore from the JSON string
schema2 = Schema.from_json(json_str)

# Store/load via a file
with open("schema.json", "w") as f:
    f.write(schema.to_json())

with open("schema.json") as f:
    schema3 = Schema.from_json(f.read())

Merging schemas (merge):

s1 = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name", "age"]},
    relationships={"KNOWS": ("Person", "Person", [])},
)
s2 = Schema(
    nodes={"Movie": ["title"], "Person": ["email"]},   # Person gets extra property
    relationships={"ACTED_IN": ("Person", "Movie", ["role"])},
)
merged = s1.merge(s2)
merged.node_labels()               # ["Movie", "Person"]
merged.node_properties("Person")   # ["age", "email", "name"]  ← union
merged.rel_types()                 # ["ACTED_IN", "KNOWS"]

Schema.from_dict() is the preferred way to restore a schema from a plain dict produced by to_dict().

---

CypherValidator

Validates Cypher queries against a Schema in two phases:

1. Syntax — Parses the query with the Cypher PEG grammar.
2. Semantic — Checks labels, types, properties, directions, and variable scopes against the schema. Typos in labels and relationship types trigger a "did you mean?" suggestion using capped Levenshtein edit-distance.

from cypher_validator import CypherValidator

validator = CypherValidator(schema)

# Single query
result = validator.validate("MATCH (p:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(c:Company) RETURN p.name")
print(result.is_valid)   # True

# Batch validation — parallel Rayon execution, GIL released for the duration
results = validator.validate_batch([
    "MATCH (p:Person) RETURN p.name",
    "MATCH (p:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(c:Company) RETURN p, c",
    "MATCH (x:Employe) RETURN x",   # typo
])
for r in results:
    print(r.is_valid, r.errors)
# True  []
# True  []
# False ["Unknown node label: :Employe — did you mean :Employee?"]

validate_batch() notes:

• Accepts a list[str] and returns a list[ValidationResult] in the same order.
• Validation is done in parallel on the Rust side using Rayon.
• The Python GIL is released for the entire batch, so other Python threads (e.g. an asyncio event loop) are not blocked.
• There is no minimum batch size — it is efficient even for a single query, though the overhead is negligible for small lists.

---

ValidationResult

Returned by both CypherValidator.validate() and each element of CypherValidator.validate_batch().

Attribute	Type	Description
is_valid	bool	True when no errors were found
errors	list[str]	All errors combined (syntax + semantic)
syntax_errors	list[str]	Parse / grammar errors only
semantic_errors	list[str]	Schema-level errors only

Also supports bool(result) and len(result):

result = validator.validate(query)

if result:
    print("Valid!")
else:
    print(f"{len(result)} error(s):")
    for err in result.errors:
        print(" -", err)

# Categorised errors
print(result.syntax_errors)   # e.g. ["Parse error: …"]
print(result.semantic_errors) # e.g. ["Unknown node label: :Foo — did you mean :Bar?"]

Example error messages:

# Unknown label — with suggestion
"Unknown node label: :Preson — did you mean :Person?"

# Unknown label — no close match
"Unknown node label: :Actor"

# Unknown relationship type — with suggestion
"Unknown relationship type: :ACTEDIN — did you mean :ACTED_IN?"

# Property not in schema
"Unknown property 'salary' for node label :Person"

# Wrong relationship direction / endpoints
"Relationship :ACTED_IN expects source label :Person, but node has label(s): :Movie"
"Relationship :ACTED_IN expects target label :Movie, but node has label(s): :Person"

# Unbound variable
"Variable 'x' is not bound in this scope"

# WITH scope reset
"Variable 'n' is not bound in this scope"  # used after WITH that didn't project it

# Label used in SET/REMOVE
"Unknown node label: :Managr — did you mean :Manager?"

"Did you mean?" suggestions appear when a misspelled label or relationship type has a Levenshtein edit-distance of ≤ 2 from a known schema entry (case-insensitive comparison).

---

CypherGenerator

Generates syntactically correct, schema-valid Cypher queries for rapid prototyping, testing, and dataset creation.

from cypher_validator import CypherGenerator

gen = CypherGenerator(schema)           # random seed each run
gen = CypherGenerator(schema, seed=42)  # deterministic / reproducible output

query = gen.generate("match_return")
# "MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n LIMIT 17"

query = gen.generate("order_by")
# "MATCH (n:Movie) RETURN n ORDER BY n.year DESC LIMIT 5"

query = gen.generate("distinct_return")
# "MATCH (n:Person) RETURN DISTINCT n.name"

query = gen.generate("unwind")
# "MATCH (n:Person) UNWIND n.name AS item RETURN item"

# List all supported patterns
CypherGenerator.supported_types()
# ['match_return', 'match_where_return', 'create', 'merge', 'aggregation',
#  'match_relationship', 'create_relationship', 'match_set', 'match_delete',
#  'with_chain', 'distinct_return', 'order_by', 'unwind']

# Generate many queries in one call (avoids per-call Python overhead)
queries = gen.generate_batch("match_return", 500)  # list[str], len == 500

Supported query types (13 total):

Type	Example output
match_return	MATCH (n:Movie) RETURN n
match_where_return	MATCH (n:Person) WHERE n.name = "Alice" RETURN n.name
create	CREATE (n:Person {name: "Bob", age: 42}) RETURN n
merge	MERGE (n:Movie {title: $value}) RETURN n
aggregation	MATCH (n:Person) RETURN count(n.age) AS result
match_relationship	OPTIONAL MATCH (a:Person)-[r:ACTED_IN]->(b:Movie) RETURN a, r, b
create_relationship	MATCH (a:Person),(b:Movie) CREATE (a)-[r:ACTED_IN]->(b) RETURN r
match_set	MATCH (n:Person) SET n.name = "Carol" RETURN n
match_delete	MATCH (n:Movie) DETACH DELETE n
with_chain	MATCH (n:Person) WITH n.name AS val RETURN count(*)
distinct_return	MATCH (n:Person) RETURN DISTINCT n.name LIMIT 10
order_by	MATCH (n:Movie) RETURN n ORDER BY n.year DESC LIMIT 25
unwind	MATCH (n:Person) UNWIND n.age AS item RETURN item

Generated scalar values cycle through string literals ("Alice"), integers (42), booleans (true/false), and parameters ($name). OPTIONAL MATCH and LIMIT clauses are randomly included. All generated queries are guaranteed to pass CypherValidator with the same schema.

---

parse_query / QueryInfo

Parse a Cypher string and extract structural information without needing a schema.

from cypher_validator import parse_query

info = parse_query("MATCH (p:Person)-[:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie) RETURN p.name, m.year")

info.is_valid        # True
info.errors          # []
info.labels_used     # ["Movie", "Person"]   (sorted, deduplicated)
info.rel_types_used  # ["ACTED_IN"]          (sorted, deduplicated)
info.properties_used # ["name", "year"]      (sorted, deduplicated)

bool(info)           # True  (same as is_valid)

# Invalid query
info = parse_query("THIS IS NOT CYPHER")
info.is_valid   # False
info.errors     # ["Parse error: …"]

QueryInfo attributes:

Attribute	Type	Description
is_valid	bool	Syntax check result
errors	list[str]	Syntax error messages (empty when valid)
labels_used	list[str]	Sorted, deduplicated node labels referenced in the query
rel_types_used	list[str]	Sorted, deduplicated relationship types referenced in the query
properties_used	list[str]	Sorted, deduplicated property keys accessed anywhere in the query

properties_used collects every property key that appears in the query — in RETURN, WHERE, SET, inline node/relationship maps, WITH, ORDER BY, list comprehensions, etc. This is useful for dependency analysis, schema introspection, and query auditing without a schema.

# Complex query — all property accesses are captured
info = parse_query("""
    MATCH (p:Person {age: 30})-[r:WORKS_FOR {since: 2020}]->(c:Company)
    WHERE p.name = "Alice" AND c.founded > 2000
    WITH p, p.email AS contact
    RETURN contact, c.name
    ORDER BY c.name
""")
info.properties_used
# ['age', 'email', 'founded', 'name', 'since']

---

GLiNER2 integration

The GLiNER2 integration converts relation-extraction results into Cypher queries.

Most users should start with NLToCypher — it wraps all three classes into a single callable that goes from raw text to Cypher (and optionally executes it against Neo4j) in one line. RelationToCypherConverter and GLiNER2RelationExtractor are lower-level building blocks exposed for advanced use cases.

RelationToCypherConverter

A pure-Python class that converts any dict matching the GLiNER2 output format into a Cypher query. No ML model required.

from cypher_validator import RelationToCypherConverter, Schema

# GLiNER2 extraction result
results = {
    "relation_extraction": {
        "works_for": [("John", "Apple Inc.")],
        "lives_in":  [("John", "San Francisco")],
        "founded":   [],   # requested but not found in text
    }
}

# Without schema (no node labels)
converter = RelationToCypherConverter()

# All three methods return (cypher_str, params_dict) — entity values are
# passed as $param placeholders to prevent Cypher injection.

# ── MATCH mode (find existing data) ────────────────────────────────────────
cypher, params = converter.to_match_query(results)
print(cypher)
# MATCH (a0 {name: $a0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b0 {name: $b0_val})
# MATCH (a1 {name: $a1_val})-[:LIVES_IN]->(b1 {name: $b1_val})
# RETURN a0, b0, a1, b1
print(params)
# {"a0_val": "John", "b0_val": "Apple Inc.", "a1_val": "John", "b1_val": "San Francisco"}

# ── MERGE mode (upsert) ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
cypher, params = converter.to_merge_query(results)

# ── CREATE mode (insert new) ───────────────────────────────────────────────
cypher, params = converter.to_create_query(results)

# ── Unified dispatcher ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
cypher, params = converter.convert(results, mode="merge")

# Pass both to Neo4jDatabase.execute() — the driver handles escaping:
# results = db.execute(cypher, params)

With a schema — node labels are added automatically:

schema = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name"], "Company": ["name"], "City": ["name"]},
    relationships={
        "WORKS_FOR": ("Person", "Company", []),
        "LIVES_IN":  ("Person", "City",    []),
    },
)
converter = RelationToCypherConverter(schema=schema)
cypher, params = converter.to_merge_query(results)
print(cypher)
# MERGE (a0:Person {name: $a0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b0:Company {name: $b0_val})
# MERGE (a1:Person {name: $a1_val})-[:LIVES_IN]->(b1:City {name: $b1_val})
# RETURN a0, b0, a1, b1

Multiple pairs of the same relation type:

results = {
    "relation_extraction": {
        "works_for": [
            ("John",  "Microsoft"),
            ("Mary",  "Google"),
            ("Bob",   "Apple"),
        ],
    }
}
cypher, params = converter.to_merge_query(results)
print(cypher)
# MERGE (a0:Person {name: $a0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b0:Company {name: $b0_val})
# MERGE (a1:Person {name: $a1_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b1:Company {name: $b1_val})
# MERGE (a2:Person {name: $a2_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b2:Company {name: $b2_val})
# RETURN a0, b0, a1, b1, a2, b2
print(params)
# {"a0_val": "John", "b0_val": "Microsoft", "a1_val": "Mary", ...}

Automatic deduplication:

If the same (subject, object) pair for a given relation type appears more than once in the extraction output (which can happen with overlapping model detections), the converter silently deduplicates them — each unique triple (subject, relation, object) appears exactly once in the generated Cypher:

results = {
    "relation_extraction": {
        "works_for": [
            ("John", "Apple"),   # first occurrence
            ("John", "Apple"),   # duplicate — skipped
            ("Mary", "Apple"),   # different subject — kept
        ]
    }
}
# Only two MERGE clauses are emitted, not three

Constructor parameters:

Parameter	Default	Description
schema	None	cypher_validator.Schema for label-aware generation
name_property	"name"	Node property key used for entity text spans

convert() parameters:

Parameter	Default	Description
relations	required	GLiNER2 output dict
mode	"match"	"match", "merge", or "create"
return_clause	auto	Custom RETURN … tail (e.g. "RETURN *")

to_db_aware_query() — advanced low-level use:

If you want to generate a MATCH/CREATE query without going through NLToCypher, you can call to_db_aware_query() directly after building the entity status dict yourself:

converter = RelationToCypherConverter(schema=schema)

# entity_status maps each entity name to its DB lookup result
entity_status = {
    "John":       {"var": "e0", "label": "Person",  "param_key": "e0_val",
                   "found": True,  "introduced": False},  # exists in DB
    "Apple Inc.": {"var": "e1", "label": "Company", "param_key": "e1_val",
                   "found": False, "introduced": False},  # new
}

relations = {"relation_extraction": {"works_for": [("John", "Apple Inc.")]}}
cypher, params = converter.to_db_aware_query(relations, entity_status)
# MATCH (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})
# CREATE (e0)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# RETURN e0, e1

NLToCypher._collect_entity_status() builds this dict automatically from a live DB when db_aware=True is used — the low-level API is exposed for cases where you control the lookup yourself.

---

DB-aware query generation

db_aware=True is the flag that makes NLToCypher graph-state-aware. Without it, every call blindly CREATEs all entities, producing duplicate nodes for entities that already exist in the database. With it, each entity is looked up first and either MATCHed (existing) or CREATEd (new).

How it works

When db_aware=True is passed to __call__() or extract_and_convert():

1. Relations are extracted from the text (same as normal).
2. Each unique entity is identified and its label is resolved from the schema (and optionally enriched by a EntityNERExtractor).
3. A MATCH (n:Label {name: $val}) RETURN elementId(n) LIMIT 1 query is sent to Neo4j for each entity.
4. A mixed query is generated:
   • Existing entities → MATCH (eN:Label {name: $eN_val}) at the top.
   • New entities → CREATE (eN:Label {name: $eN_val}) inline on first use; subsequent relations reuse the bare variable eN.
   • Relationship edges → always CREATE (eA)-[:REL]->(eB).

All four entity-existence combinations

from cypher_validator import NLToCypher, Neo4jDatabase, Schema

schema = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name"], "Company": ["name"]},
    relationships={"WORKS_FOR": ("Person", "Company", [])},
)
db = Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password")
pipeline = NLToCypher.from_pretrained("fastino/gliner2-large-v1", schema=schema, db=db)

Case 1 — neither entity exists:

cypher = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"], db_aware=True)
# CREATE (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# RETURN e0, e1

Case 2 — subject (John) exists, object is new:

# (John was previously inserted into the DB)
cypher = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"], db_aware=True)
# MATCH (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})
# CREATE (e0)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# RETURN e0, e1

Case 3 — object (Apple Inc.) exists, subject is new:

cypher = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"], db_aware=True)
# MATCH (e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# CREATE (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1)
# RETURN e1, e0

Case 4 — both exist:

cypher = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"], db_aware=True)
# MATCH (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})
# MATCH (e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# CREATE (e0)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1)
# RETURN e0, e1

Multiple relations — shared entity reuse

The same entity variable is introduced once and reused across all relations, regardless of how many it participates in:

schema = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name"], "Company": ["name"], "City": ["name"]},
    relationships={
        "WORKS_FOR": ("Person", "Company", []),
        "LIVES_IN":  ("Person", "City", []),
    },
)
pipeline = NLToCypher.from_pretrained(..., schema=schema, db=db)

# John exists in DB; Apple Inc. and San Francisco are new
cypher = pipeline(
    "John works for Apple Inc. and lives in San Francisco.",
    ["works_for", "lives_in"],
    db_aware=True,
)
# MATCH (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})          ← John MATCHed once
# CREATE (e0)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1:Company {name: $e1_val})   ← Apple created inline
# CREATE (e0)-[:LIVES_IN]->(e2:City {name: $e2_val})       ← SF created inline, e0 reused
# RETURN e0, e1, e2

When all three exist:

# MATCH (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})
# MATCH (e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# MATCH (e2:City {name: $e2_val})
# CREATE (e0)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1)   ← only edges are created
# CREATE (e0)-[:LIVES_IN]->(e2)
# RETURN e0, e1, e2

Combine db_aware with execute

# Look up entities, generate query, AND execute it — all in one call
cypher, records = pipeline(
    "John works for Apple Inc.",
    ["works_for"],
    db_aware=True,
    execute=True,
)
# cypher  → mixed MATCH/CREATE string
# records → [{"e0": <Node John>, "e1": <Node Apple Inc.>}]

Why this matters vs. plain execute=True

# ── Without db_aware (legacy) ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# John is already in the DB — this creates a second John node:
cypher, _ = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"],
                     mode="create", execute=True)
# CREATE (a0:Person {name: $a0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b0:Company {name: $b0_val})
# → John now appears TWICE in the database ✗

# ── With db_aware ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
cypher, _ = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"],
                     db_aware=True, execute=True)
# MATCH (e0:Person {name: $e0_val})
# CREATE (e0)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(e1:Company {name: $e1_val})
# → John reused, no duplicate ✓

---

EntityNERExtractor

An optional NER wrapper that enriches entity-label resolution during DB-aware query generation. Useful when the schema is absent, incomplete, or when you want finer-grained entity typing (e.g. distinguishing Person from Organization for entities that appear as arguments of an unknown relation type).

Supports two backends — spaCy (fast, CPU-friendly) and HuggingFace Transformers (higher accuracy, GPU-optional):

from cypher_validator import EntityNERExtractor

spaCy backend

# pip install "cypher_validator[ner-spacy]"
# python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm

ner = EntityNERExtractor.from_spacy("en_core_web_sm")
ner.extract("John works for Apple Inc. and lives in San Francisco.")
# [
#   {"text": "John",          "label": "Person"},
#   {"text": "Apple Inc.",    "label": "Organization"},
#   {"text": "San Francisco", "label": "Location"},
# ]

Built-in spaCy label → graph node-label mappings:

spaCy type	Graph label
PERSON	Person
ORG	Organization
GPE	Location
LOC	Location
FAC	Facility
PRODUCT	Product
EVENT	Event
NORP	Group
(unknown)	type capitalised as-is

Override or extend with label_map:

ner = EntityNERExtractor.from_spacy(
    "en_core_web_trf",
    label_map={"ORG": "Company", "GPE": "City"},   # override defaults
)

HuggingFace Transformers backend

# pip install "cypher_validator[ner-transformers]"

# General English NER (default model)
ner = EntityNERExtractor.from_transformers(
    "dbmdz/bert-large-cased-finetuned-conll03-english"
)

# High-accuracy general NER
ner = EntityNERExtractor.from_transformers("Jean-Baptiste/roberta-large-ner-english")

# Biomedical NER — fine-tuned model (recommended for medical/scientific graphs)
ner = EntityNERExtractor.from_transformers(
    "d4data/biomedical-ner-all",
    label_map={
        "Medication":           "Drug",
        "Disease_disorder":     "Disease",
        "Sign_symptom":         "Symptom",
        "Biological_structure": "Anatomy",
        "Diagnostic_procedure": "Procedure",
    },
    aggregation_strategy="first",   # avoids subword fragments with this model
)

ner.extract("John works for Apple Inc.")
# [{"text": "John", "label": "Person"}, {"text": "Apple Inc.", "label": "Organization"}]

Note on dmis-lab/biobert-v1.1: This is a pre-trained language model, not a fine-tuned NER classifier. When loaded as a token-classification pipeline it outputs generic LABEL_0 / LABEL_1 tags with no semantic meaning. Use it with a fully custom label_map (e.g. {"LABEL_0": "BioEntity", "LABEL_1": "BioEntity"}) if you only need candidate spans, or use a fine-tuned biomedical NER model such as d4data/biomedical-ner-all for semantic labels. See examples/11_biobert_ner.py for a detailed comparison.

Built-in HuggingFace label → graph node-label mappings:

HF tag	Graph label
PER / PERSON	Person
ORG	Organization
LOC / GPE	Location
MISC	Entity
(unknown)	tag capitalised as-is

Plugging the NER extractor into NLToCypher

When ner_extractor is supplied, its labels enrich or override schema-based label resolution for DB lookups. This is especially helpful when the schema doesn't cover all relation types:

from cypher_validator import NLToCypher, EntityNERExtractor, Neo4jDatabase

ner = EntityNERExtractor.from_spacy("en_core_web_sm")
db  = Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password")

pipeline = NLToCypher.from_pretrained(
    "fastino/gliner2-large-v1",
    schema=schema,
    db=db,
    ner_extractor=ner,    # ← plugged in here
)

cypher = pipeline(
    "John works for Apple Inc.",
    ["works_for"],
    db_aware=True,
)
# NER identifies "John" as Person and "Apple Inc." as Organization
# DB lookup uses those labels for the MATCH query
# Generated Cypher uses the schema's "Company" label (schema wins when both provide a label)

Label resolution priority (highest first):

1. NER extractor label (when ner_extractor is set and entity text matches)
2. Schema endpoint label (derived from the relation type)
3. Empty string (no label in pattern)

EntityNERExtractor API:

Method	Description
EntityNERExtractor.from_spacy(model_name, label_map=None)	Load a spaCy nlp model
EntityNERExtractor.from_transformers(model_name, label_map=None, **kwargs)	Load a HuggingFace NER pipeline
extractor.extract(text)	Return list[{"text": str, "label": str}]

---

GLiNER2RelationExtractor

Wraps a loaded gliner2.GLiNER2 model and normalises its output to the standard format.

from cypher_validator import GLiNER2RelationExtractor

# Load from HuggingFace Hub
extractor = GLiNER2RelationExtractor.from_pretrained("fastino/gliner2-large-v1")

# Or set a custom threshold
extractor = GLiNER2RelationExtractor.from_pretrained(
    "fastino/gliner2-large-v1",
    threshold=0.7,
)

text = "John works for Apple Inc. and lives in San Francisco."

results = extractor.extract_relations(
    text,
    relation_types=["works_for", "lives_in", "founded"],
)
# {
#     "relation_extraction": {
#         "works_for": [("John", "Apple Inc.")],
#         "lives_in":  [("John", "San Francisco")],
#         "founded":   [],   # requested but not found
#     }
# }

# Override threshold for a single call
results = extractor.extract_relations(
    text,
    ["works_for"],
    threshold=0.85,   # high precision
)

Key behaviours:

• Every requested relation type is always present in the output — missing types get an empty list.
• Works with both the wrapped ({"relation_extraction": {...}}) and flat ({rel_type: [...]}) model output formats.
• threshold set at construction becomes the default; it can be overridden per-call.

Method / attribute	Description
GLiNER2RelationExtractor.from_pretrained(model_name, threshold=0.5)	Load from HuggingFace Hub or local path
extractor.extract_relations(text, relation_types, threshold=None)	Extract relations from text
extractor.threshold	Instance-level default confidence threshold
GLiNER2RelationExtractor.DEFAULT_MODEL	"fastino/gliner2-large-v1"

---

NLToCypher

This is the recommended entry point for most users. It wraps the extractor and converter into one callable — you only need to supply text, relation types, and a mode.

End-to-end pipeline combining GLiNER2RelationExtractor and RelationToCypherConverter.

from cypher_validator import NLToCypher, Schema

schema = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name"], "Company": ["name"], "City": ["name"]},
    relationships={
        "WORKS_FOR": ("Person", "Company", []),
        "LIVES_IN":  ("Person", "City",    []),
    },
)

pipeline = NLToCypher.from_pretrained(
    "fastino/gliner2-large-v1",
    schema=schema,       # optional: enables label-aware generation
    threshold=0.5,
)

# Single sentence → Cypher
cypher = pipeline(
    "John works for Apple Inc. and lives in San Francisco.",
    relation_types=["works_for", "lives_in"],
    mode="merge",
)
# MERGE (a0:Person {name: $a0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b0:Company {name: $b0_val})
# MERGE (a1:Person {name: $a1_val})-[:LIVES_IN]->(b1:City {name: $b1_val})
# RETURN a0, b0, a1, b1

# Get both the raw extraction dict and the Cypher string
relations, cypher = pipeline.extract_and_convert(
    "Alice manages the Engineering team.",
    ["manages", "reports_to"],
    mode="match",
)
print(relations)
# {"relation_extraction": {"manages": [("Alice", "Engineering team")], "reports_to": []}}
print(cypher)
# MATCH (a0 {name: $a0_val})-[:MANAGES]->(b0 {name: $b0_val})
# RETURN a0, b0

# High-precision extraction
cypher = pipeline(
    "Bob acquired TechCorp in 2019.",
    ["acquired", "merged_with"],
    mode="merge",
    threshold=0.85,
)

Database execution (execute=True):

Pass a Neo4jDatabase to execute the generated query directly and receive both the Cypher string and the Neo4j records:

from cypher_validator import NLToCypher, Neo4jDatabase

db = Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password")
pipeline = NLToCypher.from_pretrained("fastino/gliner2-large-v1", schema=schema, db=db)

# execute=True → returns (cypher, records) instead of just cypher
cypher, records = pipeline(
    "John works for Apple Inc.",
    ["works_for"],
    mode="create",
    execute=True,
)
# cypher  → 'CREATE (a0:Person {name: $a0_val})-[:WORKS_FOR]->(b0:Company {name: $b0_val})\nRETURN a0, b0'
# records → [{"a0": {...}, "b0": {...}}]

Credentials from environment variables (from_env):

export NEO4J_URI=bolt://localhost:7687
export NEO4J_USERNAME=neo4j        # optional, defaults to "neo4j"
export NEO4J_PASSWORD=secret

pipeline = NLToCypher.from_env("fastino/gliner2-large-v1", schema=schema)
cypher, records = pipeline("John works for Apple Inc.", ["works_for"],
                           mode="create", execute=True)

from_pretrained() / from_env() parameters:

Parameter	Default	Description
model_name	"fastino/gliner2-large-v1"	HuggingFace model ID or local path
schema	None	Optional schema for label-aware Cypher
threshold	0.5	Confidence threshold for relation extraction
name_property	"name"	Node property key for entity text
db	None	Neo4jDatabase connection (from_pretrained only)
database	"neo4j"	Neo4j database name (from_env only)
ner_extractor	None	Optional EntityNERExtractor for enriched entity labels in DB-aware mode

__call__() / extract_and_convert() parameters:

Parameter	Default	Description
text	required	Input sentence or passage
relation_types	required	Relation labels to extract
mode	"match"	Cypher generation mode ("match", "merge", "create"). Ignored when db_aware=True.
threshold	None	Override instance threshold
execute	False	When True, run the query against the DB and return (cypher, records)
db_aware	False	When True, look up each entity in the DB and generate MATCH/CREATE accordingly (see below)
return_clause	auto	Custom RETURN … tail

---

Neo4jDatabase

Thin wrapper around the official Neo4j Python driver for executing Cypher queries. Requires pip install "cypher_validator[neo4j]".

from cypher_validator import Neo4jDatabase

# Direct instantiation
db = Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password", database="neo4j")

# Context manager — driver is closed on exit
with Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password") as db:
    results = db.execute("MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n.name LIMIT 5")
    # [{"n.name": "Alice"}, {"n.name": "Bob"}, ...]

# With parameters
results = db.execute(
    "MATCH (n:Person {name: $name}) RETURN n",
    {"name": "Alice"},
)

# Run multiple queries in one call
queries = [
    "MATCH (n:Person) RETURN count(n)",
    "MATCH (n:Movie) RETURN count(n)",
]
all_results = db.execute_many(queries)
# [[{"count(n)": 42}], [{"count(n)": 17}]]

# With per-query parameters
all_results = db.execute_many(
    ["MATCH (n {name: $x}) RETURN n", "MATCH (n {name: $x}) RETURN n"],
    [{"x": "Alice"}, {"x": "Bob"}],
)

Method	Description
execute(cypher, parameters=None)	Run one query, return list[dict]
execute_many(queries, parameters_list=None)	Run multiple queries, return list[list[dict]]
close()	Release driver connections

---

LLM integration

cypher_validator ships a dedicated set of helpers for building LLM-driven graph applications. All utilities are importable directly from the top-level package.

from cypher_validator import (
    extract_cypher_from_text,
    format_records,
    repair_cypher,
    cypher_tool_spec,
    few_shot_examples,
    GraphRAGPipeline,
)

---

Schema prompt helpers

Three methods on Schema format the graph model for LLM system prompts. Each targets a different LLM style:

from cypher_validator import Schema

schema = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name", "age"], "Company": ["name", "founded"]},
    relationships={"WORKS_FOR": ("Person", "Company", ["since", "role"])},
)

# ── Readable text (best for general-purpose LLMs) ─────────────────────────
print(schema.to_prompt())
# Graph Schema
# ============
#
# Nodes
# -----
#   :Person                     name, age
#   :Company                    name, founded
#
# Relationships
# -------------
#   :WORKS_FOR                  (Person)-->(Company)   since, role

# ── Markdown table (great for docs and chat UIs) ──────────────────────────
print(schema.to_markdown())
# ### Nodes
# | Label | Properties |
# |---|---|
# | :Company | founded, name |
# | :Person | age, name |
#
# ### Relationships
# | Type | Source → Target | Properties |
# |---|---|---|
# | :WORKS_FOR | :Person → :Company | role, since |

# ── Inline Cypher patterns (best for LLMs that know Cypher) ───────────────
print(schema.to_cypher_context())
# // Node labels and their properties
# (:Company {founded, name})
# (:Person {age, name})
#
# // Relationship types
# (:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR {role, since}]->(:Company)

Inject the output directly into your LLM system prompt:

system_prompt = f"""You are a Cypher expert. Use this schema:

{schema.to_cypher_context()}

Rules: return ONLY the Cypher query inside a ```cypher code fence."""

---

extract_cypher_from_text

Parses a raw LLM response and returns the Cypher query string, regardless of how the LLM formatted its output:

from cypher_validator import extract_cypher_from_text

# Fenced code block (most common)
extract_cypher_from_text("""
Sure! Here is the query:
```cypher
MATCH (p:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(c:Company)
RETURN p.name, c.name

""")

"MATCH (p:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(c:Company)\nRETURN p.name, c.name"

Inline backtick

extract_cypher_from_text("Run MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n against your DB.")

"MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n"

Line-anchored (no formatting at all)

extract_cypher_from_text("MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n LIMIT 10")

"MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n LIMIT 10"

Handles ` ```cypher `, ` ```sql `, plain ` ``` `, inline backticks, and bare Cypher lines — in that priority order.

---

### repair\_cypher

Validates a query and iteratively asks an LLM to fix it when it is invalid:

```python
from cypher_validator import CypherValidator, repair_cypher

validator = CypherValidator(schema)

def call_llm(query: str, errors: list[str]) -> str:
    """Your LLM wrapper — receives the bad query and the error list."""
    ...

# Start with an LLM-generated query that may contain mistakes
bad_query = "MATCH (n:Persn)-[:WORKFOR]->(c:Company) RETURN n"

fixed_query, result = repair_cypher(validator, bad_query, call_llm, max_retries=3)
# validator calls call_llm(bad_query, ["Unknown node label :Persn — did you mean :Person?", ...])
# then re-validates, retrying up to 3 times

if result.is_valid:
    print("Repaired:", fixed_query)
else:
    print("Could not repair:", result.errors)

The errors list passed to your LLM already contains "did you mean?" hints, making self-correction highly effective even with small models.

---

format_records

Converts Neo4j result records into a string for injecting into LLM prompts:

from cypher_validator import format_records

records = db.execute("MATCH (p:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(c:Company) RETURN p.name, c.name LIMIT 3")

# Markdown table (default) — great for chat UIs and Claude
print(format_records(records))
# | p.name | c.name    |
# |--------|-----------|
# | Alice  | Acme Corp |
# | Bob    | TechStart |

# CSV — compact for token-limited contexts
print(format_records(records, format="csv"))
# p.name,c.name
# Alice,Acme Corp

# JSON — for structured output or downstream parsing
print(format_records(records, format="json"))

# Plain text — numbered records
print(format_records(records, format="text"))
# Record 1:
#   p.name: Alice
#   c.name: Acme Corp

Neo4jDatabase.execute_and_format() combines execute() and format_records() in one step:

table = db.execute_and_format(
    "MATCH (p:Person)-[:WORKS_FOR]->(c:Company) RETURN p.name, c.name LIMIT 5"
)

---

few_shot_examples

Generates labelled (description, cypher) pairs from your schema for few-shot LLM prompting:

from cypher_validator import CypherGenerator, few_shot_examples

gen = CypherGenerator(schema, seed=42)
examples = few_shot_examples(gen, n=6)
# [
#   ("Return all :Person and :Company",            "MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n LIMIT 3"),
#   ("Find :Person matching a property condition",  "MATCH (n:Person) WHERE n.age = 30 RETURN n"),
#   ("Find :Person connected via :WORKS_FOR",       "MATCH (a:Person)-[r:WORKS_FOR]->(b:Company) RETURN a, r, b"),
#   ...
# ]

# Restrict to a specific type
create_examples = few_shot_examples(gen, n=3, query_type="create")

# Embed in a system prompt
shots = "\n\n".join(f"Q: {d}\nA:\n```cypher\n{c}\n```" for d, c in examples)
system_prompt = f"Generate Cypher for this schema.\n\nExamples:\n{shots}"

---

cypher_tool_spec

Builds a tool/function-call specification for Cypher execution that works with both the Anthropic and OpenAI APIs:

from cypher_validator import cypher_tool_spec

# ── Anthropic tool_use ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
tool = cypher_tool_spec(schema, format="anthropic")
response = client.messages.create(
    model="claude-opus-4-6",
    tools=[tool],
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Who works for Acme Corp?"}],
)
# When the model calls the tool:
# tool_input["cypher"]     → the generated Cypher query
# tool_input["parameters"] → optional $param values

# ── OpenAI function calling ────────────────────────────────────────────────
tool = cypher_tool_spec(schema, format="openai")
response = openai.chat.completions.create(
    model="gpt-4o",
    tools=[tool],
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Who works for Acme Corp?"}],
)

# Optional: describe the database for better LLM guidance
tool = cypher_tool_spec(schema, db_description="HR knowledge graph", format="anthropic")

The schema's to_cypher_context() output is embedded in the tool description automatically when schema is provided, so the LLM knows exactly which labels and types to use.

---

GraphRAGPipeline

The highest-level interface: a complete Graph RAG loop in a single class.

from cypher_validator import GraphRAGPipeline, Neo4jDatabase, Schema
import openai

client = openai.OpenAI()   # reads OPENAI_API_KEY from environment

def call_llm(prompt: str) -> str:
    """Wrap your LLM here — must accept a string and return a string."""
    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model="gpt-4o",
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": prompt}],
    )
    return response.choices[0].message.content

schema = Schema(
    nodes={"Person": ["name"], "Company": ["name"]},
    relationships={"WORKS_FOR": ("Person", "Company", [])},
)
db = Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password")

pipeline = GraphRAGPipeline(schema=schema, db=db, llm_fn=call_llm)

# Simple call — returns a natural language answer
answer = pipeline.query("Who works for Acme Corp?")

# Full context — returns all intermediate artefacts
ctx = pipeline.query_with_context("Who works for Acme Corp?")
print(ctx["cypher"])             # The generated (and possibly repaired) Cypher
print(ctx["repair_attempts"])    # Number of LLM repair iterations (0 = first try valid)
print(ctx["records"])            # Raw Neo4j records
print(ctx["formatted_results"])  # Markdown table injected into the answer prompt
print(ctx["answer"])             # Final LLM-generated answer
print(ctx["execution_error"])    # None, or error message if Neo4j raised

What happens internally on each query() call:

1. Schema is formatted via to_cypher_context() and injected into the system prompt.
2. LLM generates a Cypher query (first call).
3. extract_cypher_from_text() extracts the Cypher from the response.
4. CypherValidator validates it — if invalid, the LLM is asked to fix it (up to max_repair_retries times).
5. The validated query is executed against Neo4j.
6. Results are formatted with format_records() and injected into the answer prompt.
7. LLM generates the final answer (second call).

Constructor parameters:

Parameter	Default	Description
schema	required	Graph schema for context injection and validation
db	required	Neo4jDatabase for executing queries
llm_fn	required	Callable[[str], str] — your LLM wrapper
max_repair_retries	2	Max LLM repair attempts for invalid queries
result_format	"markdown"	Format passed to format_records()
cypher_system_prompt	auto	Override the Cypher-generation system prompt
answer_system_prompt	auto	Override the answer-synthesis system prompt

Auto-discovering the schema from a live database:

db = Neo4jDatabase("bolt://localhost:7687", "neo4j", "password")
schema = db.introspect_schema()   # discovers labels, properties, and relationships
pipeline = GraphRAGPipeline(schema=schema, db=db, llm_fn=call_llm)

introspect_schema() tries the built-in db.schema.* procedures first (Neo4j 4.3+) and falls back to sampling existing nodes and relationships.

---

What the validator checks

The semantic validator performs the following checks against the provided schema:

Node labels

• Every node label used (:Person, :Movie, …) must exist in the schema.
• Properties accessed on a labelled node (e.g. n.salary on :Person) must be declared for that label.
• Typos trigger a "did you mean?" suggestion when a schema label is within edit-distance 2.

Relationship types

• Every relationship type used ([:ACTED_IN], …) must exist in the schema.
• Properties accessed on a labelled relationship (e.g. r.since on :WORKS_FOR) must be declared for that type.
• Typos trigger a "did you mean?" suggestion when a schema type is within edit-distance 2.

Relationship direction and endpoints

• For directed relationships (--> or <--), the source and target node labels are checked against the schema's declared endpoints.
• Undirected patterns (--) skip the endpoint-direction check.
• Nodes without labels are skipped (open-world assumption).

# Schema: ACTED_IN: (Person → Movie)
validator.validate("MATCH (m:Movie)-[:ACTED_IN]->(p:Person) RETURN m")
# Error: "Relationship :ACTED_IN expects source label :Person, but node has label(s): :Movie"
# Error: "Relationship :ACTED_IN expects target label :Movie, but node has label(s): :Person"

# Undirected — no direction error
validator.validate("MATCH (m:Movie)-[:ACTED_IN]-(p:Person) RETURN m")  # valid

Variable scope and unbound variables

• Variables in RETURN, WHERE, SET, DELETE, etc. must have been bound in a preceding MATCH, CREATE, MERGE, or UNWIND.
• WITH enforces a scope reset: only variables explicitly projected through WITH remain accessible afterwards.

validator.validate("MATCH (n:Person) RETURN m")
# Error: "Variable 'm' is not bound in this scope"

validator.validate("MATCH (n:Person) WITH n.name AS nm RETURN n")
# Error: "Variable 'n' is not bound in this scope"  (n not projected through WITH)

validator.validate("MATCH (n:Person) WITH n.name AS nm RETURN nm")
# valid — nm was projected

WHERE clause boolean operators

• AND, OR, XOR, and NOT in WHERE clauses are fully supported, including combinations and precedence.

validator.validate(
    "MATCH (p:Person) WHERE p.age > 30 AND p.name = 'Alice' OR p.name = 'Bob' RETURN p"
)
# valid

validator.validate(
    "MATCH (p:Person) WHERE NOT p.age < 18 AND p.name = 'Alice' RETURN p"
)
# valid

List comprehensions and quantifiers

• Variables introduced by [x IN list | ...] and ALL(x IN list WHERE ...) are locally scoped and don't leak.

Open-world assumption

• Nodes and relationships without labels/types are never flagged (e.g. MATCH (n) RETURN n is always valid).
• Property access on variables without known labels is not checked.

---

Generated query types

CypherGenerator supports 13 query patterns. All generated queries are guaranteed to pass CypherValidator with the same schema.

gen = CypherGenerator(schema, seed=0)
for query_type in CypherGenerator.supported_types():
    print(f"{query_type}: {gen.generate(query_type)}")

Generated property values cycle through four value types: string literals ("Alice"), integers (42), booleans (true/false), and parameters ($name). OPTIONAL MATCH and LIMIT clauses appear randomly. ORDER BY queries randomly include DESC.

---

Performance

The Rust core is designed for low-latency, high-throughput validation:

Parallel batch validation

validate_batch() uses Rayon to validate queries across all available CPU cores simultaneously. The Python GIL is released for the entire batch, so asyncio and other Python threads remain unblocked:

import time

queries = ["MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n"] * 10_000

start = time.perf_counter()
results = validator.validate_batch(queries)
elapsed = time.perf_counter() - start

print(f"Validated {len(results)} queries in {elapsed:.3f}s")
# Validated 10000 queries in ~0.05s  (hardware-dependent)

Capped Levenshtein

"Did you mean?" suggestions use a 1D rolling-array Levenshtein implementation with two early-exit optimisations:

1. Length-difference short-circuit — if |len(a) - len(b)| > cap, return immediately without running the algorithm.
2. Row-minimum early exit — if the minimum value in the current DP row already exceeds cap, no future row can produce a distance ≤ cap, so we exit early.

This keeps suggestion lookup fast even when the schema has many labels.

O(1) property lookup

Node and relationship property sets are stored as Rust HashSet<String> internally, so node_has_property and rel_has_property are O(1) regardless of how many properties a label declares.

Construction-time caching

CypherGenerator and SemanticValidator precompute their working data sets (label lists, relationship-type lists, per-label property maps) once at construction. Repeated calls to generate() / generate_batch() and validate() avoid redundant allocations.

---

Type stubs and IDE support

Full .pyi stub files are included in the package, providing:

• IDE autocompletion for all Rust-backed classes (Schema, CypherValidator, ValidationResult, CypherGenerator, QueryInfo, parse_query)
• mypy / pyright type checking — all methods, attributes, and return types are fully annotated
• Inline docstrings accessible via IDE hover / help()

The stubs are automatically discovered by type checkers when the package is installed. No additional configuration is needed.

# mypy will verify this correctly
from cypher_validator import Schema, CypherValidator

schema: Schema = Schema(nodes={"Person": ["name"]}, relationships={})
validator: CypherValidator = CypherValidator(schema)
result = validator.validate("MATCH (p:Person) RETURN p")
reveal_type(result.is_valid)  # Revealed type is "bool"
reveal_type(result.errors)    # Revealed type is "list[str]"

---

Project structure

cypher_validator/
├── Cargo.toml                        # Rust crate (lib name: _cypher_validator)
├── Cargo.lock                        # Locked dependency versions
├── pyproject.toml                    # maturin mixed-package config
│
├── src/                              # Rust source
│   ├── lib.rs                        # PyO3 module registration
│   ├── error.rs                      # CypherError enum
│   ├── grammar/
│   │   └── cypher.pest               # PEG grammar (Pest)
│   ├── parser/
│   │   ├── mod.rs                    # parse() entry point
│   │   ├── ast.rs                    # AST types
│   │   └── builder.rs                # Pest → AST builder
│   ├── schema/
│   │   └── mod.rs                    # Schema struct
│   ├── validator/
│   │   ├── mod.rs                    # CypherValidator, ValidationResult
│   │   └── semantic.rs               # SemanticValidator (labels, props, scope, "did you mean")
│   ├── generator/
│   │   └── mod.rs                    # CypherGenerator (13 query types)
│   └── bindings/
│       ├── mod.rs
│       ├── py_schema.rs              # Python Schema wrapper (incl. from_dict)
│       ├── py_validator.rs           # Python CypherValidator / ValidationResult (incl. validate_batch)
│       ├── py_generator.rs           # Python CypherGenerator
│       └── py_parser.rs              # Python parse_query / QueryInfo (incl. properties_used)
│
├── python/
│   └── cypher_validator/             # Python package (maturin python-source)
│       ├── __init__.py               # Re-exports Rust core + GLiNER2 + LLM helpers
│       ├── __init__.pyi              # Package-level type stubs (all classes and functions)
│       ├── _cypher_validator.pyi     # Rust extension type stubs
│       ├── gliner2_integration.py   # EntityNERExtractor, GLiNER2RelationExtractor,
│       │                             #   RelationToCypherConverter (incl. to_db_aware_query),
│       │                             #   NLToCypher (incl. db_aware, _collect_entity_status),
│       │                             #   Neo4jDatabase (incl. introspect_schema)
│       ├── llm_utils.py              # extract_cypher_from_text, format_records,
│       │                             #   repair_cypher, cypher_tool_spec, few_shot_examples
│       └── rag.py                    # GraphRAGPipeline
│
└── tests/                            # 395 tests total
    ├── test_syntax.py                # PEG grammar / syntax tests
    ├── test_schema.py                # Schema API tests
    ├── test_validator.py             # Validator smoke tests
    ├── test_new_features.py          # Direction, scope, error-category, parse_query tests
    ├── test_generator.py             # CypherGenerator tests (all 13 types)
    ├── test_roundtrip.py             # Generator output validated by validator
    ├── test_gliner2_integration.py   # GLiNER2 integration tests (no ML required)
    ├── test_neo4j_integration.py     # Neo4jDatabase and NLToCypher execute=True tests
    ├── test_db_aware.py              # db_aware=True, EntityNERExtractor, _collect_entity_status,
    │                                 #   to_db_aware_query — all entity-existence combinations
    ├── test_task2_features.py        # AND/OR grammar fix, Schema.from_dict, validate_batch, properties_used
    ├── test_task3_features.py        # "Did you mean", new generator types, deduplication
    ├── test_llm_utils.py             # extract_cypher_from_text, format_records, repair_cypher,
    │                                 #   cypher_tool_spec, few_shot_examples, Schema prompt methods
    └── test_rag.py                   # GraphRAGPipeline — construction, query, repair loop, error handling

---

Examples

The examples/ directory contains 11 self-contained scripts covering every major feature. Each script uses the real fastino/gliner2-large-v1 model (no mocks) and connects to a live Neo4j instance where applicable.

File	Topic	Requires
01_basic_validation.py	Schema definition, single/batch validation, "did you mean?"	core
02_schema_serialization.py	to_dict, from_dict, to_json, from_json, merge, prompt helpers	core
03_cypher_generator.py	All 13 CypherGenerator query types, batch generation	core
04_nl_to_cypher_basic.py	NLToCypher with real GLiNER2 — CREATE / MERGE / MATCH modes	gliner2
05_db_aware_all_cases.py	db_aware=True — 3 progressive rounds showing all MATCH/CREATE combinations	neo4j + gliner2
06_ner_extractors.py	EntityNERExtractor — spaCy and HuggingFace backends, custom label_map	ner
07_db_aware_with_ner.py	db_aware=True + real HuggingFace NER + real GLiNER2 + live Neo4j	neo4j + ner + gliner2
08_neo4j_database.py	Neo4jDatabase — execute, execute_many, execute_and_format, introspect_schema	neo4j
09_llm_utils.py	extract_cypher_from_text, format_records, repair_cypher, cypher_tool_spec, few_shot_examples	core
10_graph_rag_pipeline.py	Schema introspection, Cypher validation + execution, result formatting	neo4j
11_biobert_ner.py	BioBERT base vs fine-tuned biomedical NER — label_map adapter, full db_aware pipeline	neo4j + ner + gliner2

Run the core examples (no extras needed):

for f in 01 02 03 09; do
    echo "=== examples/${f}_*.py ===" && /path/to/python examples/0${f}_*.py
done

---

Development

Building

# Development build (installs editable into the active venv)
maturin develop

# Optimised release build
maturin develop --release

# Build a distributable wheel
maturin build --release

Running tests

# All 395 tests
pytest tests/

# Specific test modules
pytest tests/test_task2_features.py -v   # Schema.from_dict, validate_batch, properties_used
pytest tests/test_task3_features.py -v   # "did you mean", new generator types, dedup

# GLiNER2 integration only (no gliner2 package needed — uses mocks)
pytest tests/test_gliner2_integration.py -v

# DB-aware generation and EntityNERExtractor (no ML or live DB needed — uses mocks)
pytest tests/test_db_aware.py -v

# With coverage
pytest tests/ --cov=cypher_validator

All GLiNER2, NER, and Neo4j tests use unittest.mock to simulate models and the database driver, so the full test suite runs without installing gliner2, spacy, transformers, or a live Neo4j instance.

Dependency management

Python dependencies are managed with uv:

uv pip install maturin pytest
uv pip install gliner2   # optional, for NLToCypher

CI

GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/CI.yml) builds wheels for Linux (x86_64, x86, aarch64, armv7, s390x, ppc64le), Linux musl, Windows (x64, x86, arm64), and macOS (x86_64, aarch64) on every push. Releases to PyPI are triggered by pushing a version tag.