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Premium VBA static analyser & compile-safety prechecker for AI-generated VBA

Project description

VBAlidator

Premium VBA static analyser & compile-safety prechecker for AI-generated VBA. Drop-in behind any LLM-VBA generator — get a deterministic 0–100 confidence score and a stable JSON report before the code ever reaches a workbook.

PyPI version CI Docker Docs License: MIT

VBAlidator parses .bas / .cls / .frm files through a real lexer / preprocessor / parser / analyzer pipeline, applies 41 documented rules (see the catalogue), and returns a verdict CI pipelines and AI agents can act on directly.

What it catches

The full list lives at docs/rules/index.md. The high-impact subset that AI generators trip over most often:

  • VBA001 undefined identifiers, VBA002 missing object members
  • VBA006 wrong argument count, VBA007 ByRef type mismatches
  • VBA210 Set on scalar, VBA211 missing Set on object assignment
  • VBA221–VBA224 Property Get/Let/Set arity & semantics
  • VBA230 / VBA231 non-constant Const initialisers
  • VBA240 arithmetic between string and numeric literal
  • VBA300 missing PtrSafe on 64-bit Office Declares
  • VBA320 missing Option Explicit (warning)
  • VBA330 incomplete Implements of an interface
  • VBA340 / VBA341 RaiseEvent without matching Event declaration / wrong arity
  • VBA_LEX001 / VBA_LEX002 unrecognised characters & malformed date literals
  • VBA_RT001 (optional) errors caught by the actual VBE compiler via Office round-trip

Install

pip install vbalidator

…or grab the multi-arch image:

docker pull ghcr.io/twobeass/vbalidator:latest

In one CLI call

vbalidator ./MyModules --host excel
MyModules/Module1.bas:42: ERROR  [VBA001]  Undefined identifier 'tpyo' in 'DoStuff'.
MyModules/Module1.bas:1:  WARNING [VBA320]  Module 'Module1' is missing `Option Explicit`.

Files scanned : 12
Errors        : 1
Warnings      : 1
Confidence    : 77 / 100  (needs fixes)
Report saved  : vba_report.json

Exit code is 1 when the score is below the gate (--score-threshold, default 90) or there is at least one error.

In one Python call

from vbalidator import precheck

result = precheck("Module1.bas", host="excel")

if result.compile_safe:
    deploy(result)
else:
    for err in result.errors:
        print(f"{err['rule_id']}: {err['message']}")

print(f"score = {result.score} / 100")
print(result.json())   # canonical JSON v2 report

PrecheckResult exposes errors, warnings, info, issues, and the canonical .json() report. It's also truthy when compile_safe, so if precheck(...): ... is idiomatic.

See docs/ai-integration.md for full recipes (Anthropic SDK, OpenAI Agents, LangChain, GitHub Actions).

Optional dynamic verification

When a Windows host with Office is available, cross-check the static verdict against the actual VBE compiler:

vbalidator ./MyModules --host excel --roundtrip
result = precheck("Module1.bas", host="excel", roundtrip=True)

Compile errors VBE itself reports come back with severity='compile_verified' and rule_id VBA_RT001. On non-Windows hosts the call degrades gracefully to a single info-level notice instead of crashing.

Bundled host models & auto-layering

--host excel|word|access|outlook|visio auto-loads the matching Office host model from src/models/. Excel/Word/Access/Visio are full-fidelity exports of the real Office type libraries (1–3 MB each, ~1000 classes apiece, ~5000 globals/classes in Excel alone); Outlook is a hand-curated stub (the Trust-Center AccessVBOM path is GPO-blocked on managed installs).

In addition, six companion stubs auto-layer without an explicit --host flag whenever any scanned file mentions their ProgID / namespace:

Stub Triggers on Top classes
mscomctl .frm referencing ComctlLib TreeView, ListView, Toolbar, ProgressBar
msforms source mentioning MSForms. UserForm, CommandButton, TextBox, Frame
scripting Scripting.Dictionary / Scripting.FileSystemObject Dictionary, FSO, Drive, Folder, File, TextStream
vbscript_regexp VBScript.RegExp RegExp, Match, MatchCollection, SubMatches
wscript_shell WScript.Shell Shell, WshExec, WshEnvironment
shell_application Shell.Application Shell.Application, Shell.Folder, Shell.FolderItem

So --host excel covers the vast majority of real-world spreadsheet VBA — TreeView/UserForm/Dictionary/RegExp code resolves automatically. Run vbalidator --help for the full --host choice list.

Documentation

The full site is at https://twobeass.github.io/VBAlidator/ — deployed automatically from main by .github/workflows/docs.yml.

In-repo:

  • Quickstart — install → scan → ship
  • AI pipeline integration — patterns for Claude, OpenAI Agents, LangChain, CI gates
  • Usage — full CLI / Python API reference
  • Configuration — host models, custom models, conditional-compilation defaults, heuristics
  • Architecture — pipeline internals
  • Rule catalogue — all 41 rules with examples
  • CI / CD — workflows, release lifecycle, branch protection
  • UAT walkthrough — section-by-section human validation script for the current branch
  • TODO — open items that need a Windows machine, live PyPI/GHCR/Pages access, or future code work
  • Roadmap — what's done, what's queued

Development

git clone https://github.com/twobeass/VBAlidator
cd VBAlidator
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest                              # 259 tests
ruff check src tests                # lint
python tools/generate_rule_docs.py  # refresh docs/rules/ after a rule change

PR titles must follow Conventional Commits (feat: / fix: / docs: …). The release pipeline derives the next semver bump from your commit history.

License

MIT.

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