apv — Agent Plugin Validator

apv (Agent Plugin Validator) is a lightweight, high-performance, schema-driven Go CLI tool for validating Agent Plugin manifests (plugin.json) and MCP configurations (mcp.json) against the open Agent Plugins v1.0.0 specification.

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Key Features

• 🎯 100% Schema-Driven Validation: Validates both Plugin Manifests (plugin.json) and MCP Configurations (mcp.json). Automatically detects schema type via $schema URL or filename (--type auto|manifest|mcp).
• ⚡ Agent & CI/CD Ready:
  • --format json output for programmatic consumption by AI agents and pipeline steps.
  • --quiet / -q silent mode returning deterministic exit codes (0 = valid, 1 = invalid, 2 = usage/runtime error).
  • TTY auto-detection and standard NO_COLOR environment variable support.
• 📦 Embedded & Cached Schema Lifecycle:
  • Embedded canonical v1.0.0 schemas (plugin.schema.json and mcp.schema.json).
  • apv schema update [manifest|mcp|all] [url] to fetch and cache updated schemas locally (~/.apv/schemas/).
  • Flexible --schema overrides: --schema <path|url>, --schema-manifest <path>, --schema-mcp <path>, or --schema manifest=p.json,mcp=m.json.
• 🚀 Shell Autocompletion: Built-in tab completion for Bash, Zsh, Fish, and PowerShell (apv completion <shell>) with .json file completion for validate and --schema.
• ⚠️ Spec-Compliant Warning Handling:
  • Unrecognized top-level fields in plugin.json are classified as Warnings (⚠) and ignored per Spec §5.2 without failing validation.

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Installation

Via go install

go install github.com/rchaganti/agent-plugin-validator@latest

Download Pre-built Binaries

Download static binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows (amd64/arm64) from the Releases Page.

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Quick Start

1. Validate a Single File or Directory Folder

# Validate single file
apv validate plugin.json

# Validate entire plugin folder (auto-discovers plugin.json and mcp.json)
apv validate ./my-plugin-folder

Output:

✓ Using schema: Agent Plugins Manifest (embedded default)
✓ ./my-plugin-folder/plugin.json is VALID

✓ Using schema: Agent Plugins MCP Configuration (embedded default)
✓ ./my-plugin-folder/mcp.json is VALID

2. Machine-Readable Output for AI Agents & CI/CD

apv validate --format json plugin.json

Output:

{
  "valid": true,
  "schema": {
    "source": "embedded default",
    "path": "(embedded)",
    "id": "https://agent-plugins.org/schemas/1.0.0/plugin.schema.json",
    "title": "Agent Plugins Manifest"
  },
  "errors": []
}

3. Read Manifest from Standard Input

cat plugin.json | apv validate -

4. Silent Bash Verification for Scripts

apv validate -q plugin.json || exit 1

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Schema Management Commands

Command	Description
`apv schema show [manifest	mcp
`apv schema update [manifest	mcp
`apv schema reset [manifest	mcp

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Exit Codes

Exit Code	Meaning
0	Validation Succeeded: Plugin manifest is valid (or has non-fatal warnings)
1	Validation Failed: Manifest contains fatal schema errors
2	Usage / Runtime Error: File not found, invalid JSON syntax, CLI flag error

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Spec §5.2 Warnings vs Errors

Violation Type	Severity	Exit Code	Result	Spec Rule
Missing $schema or name	Fatal Error	1	valid: false	Required fields
Invalid name pattern/length	Fatal Error	1	valid: false	Format constraints
Unknown top-level property	Warning	0	valid: true	Ignored per Spec §5.2

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Development & Testing

# Run unit tests
go test -v ./...

# Build local binary
go build -o apv .

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License

MIT License © 2026 Ravikanth Chaganti & Contributors.