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Charites Static Analysis Rule Catalog

Welcome to the Charites Static Analysis Rule Catalog. Charites is an ultra-fast, zero-CGO, zero-Node.js static analysis compiler for Astro, React TSX, and Tailwind CSS design tokens.

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Categories

Category	Rules Count	Documentation
theme	15	theme

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All Registered Rules

Rule ID	Category	Severity	Description	Documentation
theme.backdrop-blur-hardcode	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded arbitrary blur and backdrop-blur scalars in Tailwind utility classes	theme.backdrop-blur-hardcode
theme.focus-ring-hardcode	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded primitive palette or arbitrary hex colors on focus rings and outlines	theme.focus-ring-hardcode
theme.gradient-hardcode	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded primitive, arbitrary hex, or monochrome colors in gradient stops	theme.gradient-hardcode
theme.hardcode-border-color	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded border and divider colors using primitive palettes, raw hex literals, or static monochrome	theme.hardcode-border-color
theme.hardcode-border-radius	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded arbitrary border-radius scalars in Tailwind utility classes	theme.hardcode-border-radius
theme.hardcode-color	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded arbitrary hex or rgb color literals in Tailwind utility classes and arbitrary properties	theme.hardcode-color
theme.hardcode-monochrome	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded monochrome utilities (white/black) that fail to adapt across light and dark themes	theme.hardcode-monochrome
theme.hardcode-opacity-color	theme	ERROR	Detects utility classes with hardcoded slash opacity modifiers that have official semantic token replacements	theme.hardcode-opacity-color
theme.hardcode-shadow-color	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded color literals embedded in box-shadow declarations	theme.hardcode-shadow-color
theme.hardcode-size	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded arbitrary size, spacing, or typography scalars in Tailwind utility classes	theme.hardcode-size
theme.hardcode-z-index	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded arbitrary z-index scalars that trigger stacking context wars	theme.hardcode-z-index
theme.important-override	theme	ERROR	Detects !important modifiers on color utility classes that break theme cascade and specificity hierarchy	theme.important-override
theme.inline-style-hardcode	theme	ERROR	Detects hardcoded color literals inside HTML/JSX style attributes that prevent theme cascade	theme.inline-style-hardcode
theme.primitive-in-component	theme	ERROR	Detects direct usage of Tailwind primitive palette colors in component classes instead of semantic tokens	theme.primitive-in-component
theme.pseudo-hardcode-color	theme	WARN	Detects hardcoded primitive, arbitrary hex, or monochrome colors inside pseudo-element and pseudo-class variants	theme.pseudo-hardcode-color

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How the Static Analysis Pipeline Works

Charites processes project source code and design tokens through a unified 4-stage pipeline:

flowchart LR
    subgraph Discovery ["1. Source & SSOT Discovery"]
        TargetFiles["Target Files (*.astro, *.tsx)"]
        TokensSSOT["Design Tokens SSOT (global.css, tokens.json)"]
    end

    subgraph Pipeline ["2. Extraction & Graph"]
        TargetFiles --> Scanner["Fast Walker & Worker Pool (internal/scanner)"]
        Scanner --> Parser["AST & IR Builder (internal/parser)"]
        TokensSSOT --> TokenEngine["Token Subsystem (internal/token)"]
        TokenEngine --> Graph["Directed Token Dependency Graph"]
    end

    subgraph Engine ["3. Static Analysis Across Categories"]
        Parser --> Analyzer["IR Traversal Engine (internal/analyzer)"]
        Graph --> Context["Read-Only Token Context Facade"]
        Analyzer <--> RulesTheme["Theme Rules (internal/rules/theme)"]
        Analyzer <--> RulesA11y["A11y Rules (internal/rules/a11y)"]
        Analyzer <--> RulesResp["Responsive & Perf Rules"]
        Context -.-> RulesTheme
        Context -.-> RulesA11y
    end

    subgraph Output ["4. Reporting"]
        RulesTheme --> Reporter["Reporter Engine (Terminal ANSI, JSON, MCP)"]
        RulesA11y --> Reporter
        RulesResp --> Reporter
    end

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Pipeline Flow:

1. Target Discovery & AST Construction: internal/scanner discovers and walks workspace source files in parallel, streaming .astro and .tsx components to internal/parser to construct normalized ir.Node structures.
2. Multi-Format SSOT Token Graph: internal/token auto-discovers design token sources across both CSS (global.css, index.css, @theme) and JSON manifests (tokens.json W3C DTCG format). It parses custom properties (--*), nested themes (:root, .dark), and variable references (var(--...)), constructing a design-agnostic Directed Token Dependency Graph with visited-set cycle detection and recursion budget limits.
3. Stateless Traversal & Multi-Category Evaluation: internal/analyzer coordinates parallel IR node traversal across modular rule domains:
   • Theme Governance (internal/rules/theme): Validates utility classes, stripping variants and ensuring opacity/color modifications use official semantic tokens declared in the graph.
   • Accessibility Verification (internal/rules/a11y): Replaces legacy regex heuristics (migrated from charites-legacy/a11y-checker.ts) with AST-grounded validation of label/input bindings, heading hierarchies, missing alt-text, and token-resolved WCAG 2.2 color contrast ratios.
   • Responsive & Performance (internal/rules/{responsive,perf}): Enforces Fitts's Law touch target ergonomics (>= 44x44px), modern @container queries, and Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP).
4. Multi-Channel Delivery: Diagnostics are deterministically rendered for ANSI terminal output, streaming JSON envelopes, or MCP JSON-RPC 2.0 tool calls.

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How Testing Works Across Charites (The 4-Layer Verification Harness)

Charites enforces correctness, resilience, and zero false positives across four interconnected testing tiers:

flowchart TD
    subgraph Suite ["The 4-Layer Verification Harness"]
        subgraph L1 ["Layer 1: Unit & Subsystem Tests"]
            U1["CSS Lexer & Parser Tests (internal/token/theme)"]
            U2["Token Graph Cycles & DoS Budget (internal/token)"]
            U3["Extractor & Scope Specificity (internal/token)"]
            U4["IR Parser & AST Visitors (internal/parser)"]
        end
        subgraph L2 ["Layer 2: 1-SSOT Golden Tri-Corpus"]
            G1["Positive (P1-P5): Verified true positives with exact line & span"]
            G2["Negative (N1-N5): Zero false positives on valid tokens & Banana Test"]
            G3["Adversarial (A1-A7): Resilience to cyclic vars, ternaries, obfuscation"]
        end
        subgraph L3 ["Layer 3: Monorepo Integration"]
            I1["Upward Directory Discovery: global.css from nested subdirectories"]
            I2["Multi-Scope Theme Switching: :root vs .dark resolution"]
            I3["E2E CLI Parity: Terminal ANSI, Streaming JSON, MCP JSON-RPC 2.0"]
        end
        subgraph L4 ["Layer 4: Continuous Fuzz Testing"]
            F1["Native Go 1.26 Fuzzing (tests/fuzz/css_fuzz_test.go)"]
            F2["14,000+ Synthetic CSS Mutations: Zero Panics, Zero OOM, Zero Leaks"]
        end
    end

    L1 --> L2
    L2 --> L3
    L3 --> L4

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Testing Tier Flow:

1. Layer 1 (Subsystem Units): Validates deterministic lexing, zero-panic parsing, graph cycle detection (ErrCycleDetected), and traversal recursion budget limits (ErrEvaluationBudgetExceeded).
2. Layer 2 (1-SSOT Golden Tri-Corpus): Every static analysis rule is tested against an exhaustive 17-pattern matrix in tests/correctness/<rule-id>/:
   • Positive (P1-P5): Obvious, indirect, helper-wrapped, deeply nested, and aliased violations.
   • Negative (N1-N5): Valid tokens, explicit ignore directives, third-party libraries, standard HTML, and untokenized custom values (the Banana Test).
   • Adversarial (A1-A7): Template literal interpolations, ternary conditionals, spread props, dynamic classes, variable shadowing, and cyclic references.
3. Layer 3 (Monorepo Integration): Validates end-to-end multi-scope token resolution (:root vs .dark), upward directory walks, and CLI output rendering in tests/token_integration_test.go.
4. Layer 4 (Continuous Fuzzing): Employs native Go 1.26 fuzzing (tests/fuzz/css_fuzz_test.go) over tens of thousands of malformed mutations to guarantee memory safety and crash resilience.

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Architectural Principles

1. Deterministic Execution: Pure-function AST visitors without file system or network I/O during evaluation.
2. SSOT Token Evidence: Static rules only enforce semantic token replacements that genuinely exist in the project's token dependency graph.
3. 1-SSOT Tri-Corpus Assurance: Every rule is validated against a 3-part golden test corpus (positive/, negative/, adversarial/).
4. Canonical Semgrep Identifiers: All rules follow the <category>.<slug> standard.