WCTools

Note

This is currently in alpha and is experimental.

The Web Component Tools project is a suite of tools designed to make the integration and validation of web components/custom elements easier for teams using them in their projects.

The project currently consists of the CLI tool, but more are on their way.

Web Component Linter (validate)

wctools validate CLI command statically analyzes your code to quickly find problems using information from the Custom Elements Manifest (CEM). Editor support can be found using the Web Component Language Server and you can run wctools as part of your continuous integration pipeline.

Features

• 🔍 Web Components Validation - Validates custom elements, attributes, and their values against Custom Elements Manifest
• 🎯 Unknown Element Detection - Identifies unregistered custom elements
• ⚠️ Unknown Attribute Detection - Finds attributes not defined in the manifest
• 📊 Multiple Output Formats - Text, JSON, JUnit XML, Checkstyle XML, SARIF, HTML
• 🎨 Colored Output - Terminal-friendly formatting with colors and icons
• ⚙️ Configurable - Flexible configuration via JSON or JavaScript files
• 🔧 CLI Integration - Perfect for CI/CD pipelines and build processes

Note

If you’re not already using it, be sure check out the Web Components Language Server. It is the companion piece to this and provides editor support for web components.

Installation

# Install globally
npm install -g @wc-toolkit/wctools

# Or install locally in your project
npm install --save-dev @wc-toolkit/wctools

Quick Start

1. Validate your files - use the default configuration:

   wctools validate

2. Initialize a configuration (optional) - create custom behavior for the toolkit:

   wctools init

Usage

Commands

The commands follow a similar pattern to ESLint.

wctools [command] [options] [file|dir|glob]*

Validate Web Component files against Custom Elements Manifest.

# Validate using a custom or default config
wctools validate

# Validate specific files
wctools validate src/components/*.html

# Validate with glob patterns
wctools validate "src/**/*.{html,js,ts}"

# Different output formats - default is `text`
wctools validate --format json src/*.html
wctools validate --format junit src/*.html > results.xml
wctools validate --format checkstyle src/*.html

Options:

• -f, --format <format> - Output format: text | json | junit | checkstyle | sarif | html (default: text)
• -c, --config <path> - Explicit path to config file (overrides auto-discovery)
• --no-color - Disable colored output
• -v, --verbose - Show files with no issues

Additional Options:

• -o, --output <file> - Write results to a file. When --format is omitted, the CLI attempts to infer from extension (.json, .xml, .sarif, .html).

Custom Configuration

Create a sample configuration file. This file uses the same format as the Language Server and will be shared by both.

The configuration will give you default values, but all of the settings are required, so feel free to remove those that you don’t need.

# Create default config
wctools init

NOTE: Place wc.config.js (or another supported name) at the project root for auto-detection.

The generated configuration shows all available options for clarity; every field is optional. Remove entries you do not need.

Supported config filenames (auto-discovered in project root):

• wc.config.js / .cjs / .mjs / .ts

Disabling diagnostics in source

wctools supports in-source comments to suppress diagnostics similar to ESLint. Use HTML comments to disable rules globally or for the next line. Multiple rules may be listed and will stack. Rules can be separated by spaces or commas.

Examples:

• Disable all diagnostics for the file:

<!-- wctools-ignore -->

• Disable specific rules for the file (stacked, comma or space separated):

<!-- wctools-ignore unknownAttribute deprecatedAttribute -->

• Disable a rule for the next line:

<!-- wctools-ignore-next-line deprecatedAttribute -->
<my-element deprecated-attr></my-element>

These directives are useful to locally silence known, acceptable deviations without changing global configuration.

Programmatic API

You can also import types and the programmatic adapter directly from @wc-toolkit/wctools when using this package as a dependency:

import {
  lintWebComponents,
  type LintWebComponentsOptions,
} from "@wc-toolkit/wctools";

const options: LintWebComponentsOptions = {
  format: "html", // any: text|json|junit|checkstyle|sarif|html
  output: "lint-result.html",
};
await lintWebComponents(["src/**/*.html"], options);

This is useful for embedding the validator in build scripts or custom tooling without spawning child processes.

Output Formats

Choose an output format based on who (or what) will consume the results:

• Use the default Text format for quick, human-readable checks in a terminal.
• Use JSON when you need a machine-readable export for dashboards, scripts, or editor integrations.
• Use JUnit XML to integrate with CI systems that display test reports (GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins).
• Use Checkstyle XML when you want to feed results into code-quality tools or PR annotation bots that understand the Checkstyle schema.
• SARIF is useful for CI code-scanning integrations and security tools.

Below are short notes on common consumers and why a format might be preferred.

Which to Pick

• Local developer runs: text (fast, readable).
• Automation / integrations: json, junit, or checkstyle depending on the consuming tool.
• CI reporting & historical metrics: prefer structured formats (junit, json, or sarif) so results can be stored and trended.

Text Format (Default)

# default lint command uses text output
wctools validate

# manual file output
wctools validate --format text --output report.txt

src/components/my-element.html:
  💡 Hint 1:15 Unknown element: my-custom-element
  💡 Hint 1:30 Unknown attribute: unknown-attr

Found 2 hints in 1 file.

JSON Format

wctools validate --format json --output report.json

[
  {
    "file": "src/components/my-element.html",
    "diagnostics": [
      {
        "range": {
          "start": { "line": 0, "character": 14 },
          "end": { "line": 0, "character": 31 }
        },
        "severity": 4,
        "message": "Unknown element: my-custom-element"
      }
    ]
  }
]

JUnit XML Format

wctools validate --format junit --output report.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<testsuite name="wctools" tests="1" failures="0">
  <testcase name="src/components/my-element.html" classname="WebComponentValidation"/>
</testsuite>

Checkstyle XML Format

wctools validate --format checkstyle --output report.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<checkstyle version="1.0">
  <file name="src/components/my-element.html">
    <error line="1" column="15" severity="hint" message="Unknown element: my-custom-element" source="wctools"/>
  </file>
</checkstyle>

SARIF Format

wctools validate --format sarif --output report.json

{
  "$schema": "https://schemastore.azurewebsites.net/schemas/json/sarif-2.1.0-rtm.5.json",
  "version": "2.1.0",
  "runs": [
    {
      "tool": {
        "driver": {
          "name": "wctools",
          "informationUri": "https://wc-toolkit.com"
        }
      },
      "results": [
        {
          "ruleId": "WC001",
          "level": "note",
          "message": { "text": "Unknown element: my-custom-element" },
          "locations": [
            {
              "physicalLocation": {
                "artifactLocation": { "uri": "src/components/my-element.html" },
                "region": { "startLine": 1, "startColumn": 15 }
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

The CLI emits SARIF 2.1.0 with basic tool/driver metadata and rules mapped to diagnostics so code scanning and SARIF viewers can display issues correctly.

HTML Report

Generate a single-file HTML report suitable for attaching as CI artifacts or sharing with teammates. The HTML is styled and responsive for quick inspection in a browser.

wctools validate --format html --output report.html

When saving HTML as a CI artifact you can open it in the browser or attach it to pull requests for easy review.

CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions

name: Validate Web Components
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: "18"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx wctools

GitLab CI

validate-web-components:
  stage: test
  script:
    - npm ci
    - npx wctools validate --format junit "src/**/*.html" > validation-results.xml
  artifacts:
    reports:
      junit: validation-results.xml

npm Scripts

{
  "scripts": {
    "validate:wc": "wctools validate \"src/**/*.{html,js,ts}\"",
    "validate:wc:ci": "wctools validate --format junit \"src/**/*.html\" > validation-results.xml"
  }
}

Examples

Basic Validation

# Validate all HTML files in src directory
wctools validate "src/**/*.html"

# Validate specific files
wctools validate src/button.html src/card.html

# Validate with verbose output to see all files processed
wctools validate --verbose "**/*.html"

Custom Configuration

# Different output formats for CI
wctools validate --format junit "src/**/*.html" > results.xml
wctools validate --format checkstyle "src/**/*.html" > checkstyle.xml
wctools validate --format json "src/**/*.html" > results.json

Integration with Build Tools

# Validate with build
npm run build && npm run validate:wc

# Validate in watch mode (using nodemon or similar)
nodemon --watch src --ext html,js,ts --exec "wctools validate 'src/**/*.html'"

Validate only changed files

You can run wctools only on files that have changed by using git to list changed filenames and passing them to the CLI. Below are a few common patterns.

• Changed in working tree (including unstaged/staged):

# find changed files and validate them
git ls-files --modified --others --exclude-standard -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | \
  xargs -r npx wctools validate

• Staged files only:

git diff --name-only --cached -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | \
  xargs -r npx wctools validate

• Files changed in the last commit:

git diff --name-only HEAD~1..HEAD -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | \
  xargs -r npx wctools validate

• Files changed between branches or PR ranges (useful in CI):

git fetch origin main
git diff --name-only origin/main...HEAD -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | \
  xargs -r npx wctools validate

Notes:

• xargs -r (GNU) or xargs --no-run-if-empty avoids running the command when there are no files.
• Adjust the glob to match the files you want to validate.
• If you prefer JSON/JUnit output for CI, add --format json|junit and redirect output.

Example npm scripts:

{
  "scripts": {
    "validate:changed": "git diff --name-only origin/main...HEAD -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | xargs -r npx wctools validate",
    "validate:staged": "git diff --name-only --cached -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | xargs -r npx wctools validate"
  }
}

Example GitHub Actions step (validate changed files in a PR):

- name: Validate changed files with wctools
  run: |
    git fetch origin ${{ github.base_ref }} --depth=1
    git diff --name-only origin/${{ github.base_ref }}...HEAD -- 'src/**/*.{html,js,ts}' | \
      xargs -r npx wctools validate --format junit > validation-results.xml || true
  # upload validation-results.xml as an artifact or use it as a report