fix(formula): let an authoring surface declare the binding roots it mounts (ExprSchemaHint.roots)

.changeset/18554-expr-schema-hint-surface-roots.md

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+"@objectstack/formula": minor
+---
+
+`ExprSchemaHint` gains `roots` — an authoring surface naming the binding roots it mounts beyond the platform baseline, so `validateExpression` can accept them without standing down on everything else (#18554).
+
+A page component's `visibleWhen` binds three roots at runtime, and `ExprSchemaHint` could express neither of the two shapes it needs: `scope: 'record'` refused `page.selectedProjectId != ''` — the worked example `packages/spec/src/ui/page.zod.ts`'s own `visibleWhen` describe ends with, under a sentence naming the contract-bound roots as `record`, `current_user` and page state as `page.<var>` — and prescribed `record.page`, which names nothing on any layer; `scope: 'flattened'` accepted that example and accepted a bare `status == 'done'` with it, which is the shorthand the narrowing exists to catch. Downstream the refusal is not cosmetic: an editor that lints a page block on the `record` face disables Save for the author who wrote the platform's own documented spelling.
+
+```ts
+validateExpression('predicate', "page.selectedProjectId != ''", {
+  scope: 'record',
+  roots: ['page'],      // what this surface mounts beyond the baseline
+});                     // -> ok; `status == 'done'` at the same site is still an error
+```
+
+- **It only ever adds.** A root listed in `roots` is declared alongside `SCOPE_ROOTS`, never instead of it, so passing the key can turn a refusal into an acceptance and never the reverse — a caller adopting it cannot silently lose a check it has today, and a call site that does not pass it gets the verdict and the prescription it got before, byte for byte.
+- **Declaring a root is not becoming permissive.** The bare-field shorthand, an undeclared root, and a typo of a declared root are all still hard errors at a surface that declares `page`. Trading a false refusal for a silent acceptance is the worse of the two directions, so the surface says *which* roots it binds rather than asking the validator to stop checking.
+- **A mistyped root is sent to the root, not to `record.<typo>`.** When a surface has declared its roots, a namespace reference within edit distance of one of them (`pge.selectedProjectId`) is named as an unbound root and pointed at `page`. Every other shape — a bare value reference, a known field used as a JSON namespace, any site with no declared roots — keeps the existing `record.<name>` prescription, which is the right fix for the case it was written for.
+- **`introspectScope` advertises what the validator accepts.** Declared roots join the roots it hands an author, from the same declaration, so a root that is accepted is never one an author has no way to discover.
+- **Not a closed-set mechanism.** A surface that must *refuse* a baseline root it never mounts still says so with `collectCelRootIdentifiers`, which reads the AST and is independent of this key. The two directions stay two mechanisms.
+
+Clause-②: yes (widening)

packages/formula/src/validate-surface-roots.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,212 @@
+// Copyright (c) 2026 ObjectStack. Licensed under the Apache-2.0 license.
+
+/**
+ * `ExprSchemaHint.roots` — an authoring surface naming the binding roots it
+ * mounts beyond the platform baseline, so the validator can accept them
+ * WITHOUT standing down on everything else.
+ *
+ * ## The defect this closes
+ *
+ * A page component's `visibleWhen` binds three roots at runtime. Before this
+ * key the hint could express two shapes and neither was that surface:
+ *
+ *   - `scope: 'record'`    refused `page.selectedProjectId != ''` — the example
+ *                          `packages/spec/src/ui/page.zod.ts`'s own `visibleWhen`
+ *                          describe ends with, under a sentence naming the
+ *                          contract-bound roots as `record`, `current_user` and
+ *                          「page state as `page.<var>`」 — and prescribed
+ *                          `record.page`, which names nothing on any layer.
+ *                          Downstream that refusal disables Save in the designer.
+ *   - `scope: 'flattened'` accepted it, and accepted a bare `status` with it,
+ *                          which is the shorthand the narrowing exists to catch.
+ *
+ * ⛔ The repair is NOT "make the validator permissive at that surface": trading
+ * a false refusal for a silent acceptance is the worse of the two directions
+ * here. A surface declares WHICH roots it binds, and every other name keeps the
+ * verdict it had.
+ *
+ * ## What this file pins, and what it deliberately does not
+ *
+ * The assertions are about the NAMED SUBJECT of each verdict — which reference
+ * is judged, and which spelling is prescribed — never the sentence around it.
+ * `ExprValidationError` carries no code or status, so the prescribed spelling
+ * IS the machine-readable part of the contract for the two rows where a
+ * prescription is the defect; the rest of the wording is free to change.
+ */
+
+import { describe, it, expect } from 'vitest';
+
+import { SCOPE_ROOTS } from './cel-engine';
+import { introspectScope, validateExpression } from './validate';
+
+/**
+ * The spec's own worked example for `PageComponent.visibleWhen`, copied from
+ * the `.describe()` in `packages/spec/src/ui/page.zod.ts` rather than invented
+ * here. It is the sharpest form of the defect: the one spelling the platform
+ * publishes for this key was the one the `record` scope refused.
+ */
+const SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE = "page.selectedProjectId != ''";
+
+/** The bare-field shorthand a page block's `visibleWhen` must keep refusing. */
+const BARE_FIELD = "status == 'done'";
+
+/** What the page surface mounts beyond the platform baseline. */
+const PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS = ['page'] as const;
+
+describe('ExprSchemaHint.roots — a surface declaring the roots it binds', () => {
+  it('`page` is not in the platform baseline, and that is why the hint is needed', () => {
+    // Read from the list, never copied: if `page` is ever added to the baseline
+    // this row goes red and the premise below has to be re-argued.
+    expect(SCOPE_ROOTS as readonly string[]).not.toContain('page');
+    expect(SCOPE_ROOTS as readonly string[]).toContain('current_user');
+  });
+
+  describe("the card's repro — the spec's own `page.var` example", () => {
+    it('is refused under `record` scope with no declared roots (the defect)', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE, { scope: 'record' });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      // The named subject is `page`, and the prescription is the meaningless one.
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('`page`');
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('record.page');
+    });
+
+    it('resolves once the surface declares `page` as one of its roots', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE, {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(true);
+      expect(r.errors).toEqual([]);
+      expect(r.warnings).toEqual([]);
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('declaring a root does NOT make the surface permissive', () => {
+    it('still refuses the bare-field shorthand, with the `record.` prescription', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', BARE_FIELD, {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('`status`');
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('record.status');
+    });
+
+    it('still refuses a root the surface did NOT declare', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', "wizard.step == 2", {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('`wizard`');
+    });
+
+    it('judges the declared root and the bare field in one source, refusing on the field', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', `${SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE} && ${BARE_FIELD}`, {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('`status`');
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('the refusal names the roots the surface does bind', () => {
+    it('sends a typo of a declared root to that root, not to `record.<typo>`', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', "pge.selectedProjectId != ''", {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      const [{ message }] = r.errors;
+      expect(message).toContain('`pge`');
+      expect(message).toContain('`page`');
+      // ⛔ The prescription the card calls meaningless must not be the one an
+      // author is handed for a mistyped ROOT.
+      expect(message).not.toContain('record.pge');
+    });
+
+    it('leaves a bare VALUE reference on the generic message even when roots are declared', () => {
+      // `pge` here is not written as a namespace, so nothing says it is a
+      // mistyped root rather than a mistyped field.
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', "pge == 'x'", {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('record.pge');
+    });
+
+    it('keeps `record.<field>` for a known field used as a namespace (a JSON member)', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', "address.city == 'SF'", {
+        scope: 'record',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+        fields: ['address'],
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('record.address');
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('every existing call site is unmoved', () => {
+    it.each([
+      ['no hint at all', undefined],
+      ['`roots` absent', { scope: 'record' as const }],
+      ['`roots` empty', { scope: 'record' as const, roots: [] }],
+    ])('%s → the pre-existing verdict and prescription', (_label, schema) => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE, schema);
+      if (schema === undefined) {
+        // No `scope` ⇒ the bare-ref check does not run at all; unchanged.
+        expect(r.ok).toBe(true);
+        return;
+      }
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(false);
+      expect(r.errors[0].message).toContain('record.page');
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('the flattened face', () => {
+    it('does not report a declared root as a typo of a near-miss field', () => {
+      // Without the declaration this warns 「did you mean `pages`?」 — advice on
+      // a root the surface really does bind.
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE, {
+        scope: 'flattened',
+        fields: ['pages', 'status'],
+        objectName: 'project',
+        roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS,
+      });
+      expect(r.ok).toBe(true);
+      expect(r.warnings).toEqual([]);
+    });
+
+    it('still warns for that same near-miss when the root is NOT declared', () => {
+      const r = validateExpression('predicate', SPEC_PAGE_EXAMPLE, {
+        scope: 'flattened',
+        fields: ['pages', 'status'],
+        objectName: 'project',
+      });
+      expect(r.warnings).toHaveLength(1);
+      expect(r.warnings[0].message).toContain('`pages`');
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('introspection advertises what the validator accepts', () => {
+    it('adds the declared roots to the authoring vocabulary', () => {
+      const { roots } = introspectScope('predicate', { scope: 'record', roots: PAGE_SURFACE_ROOTS });
+      expect(roots).toContain('page');
+      expect(roots).toContain('record');
+    });
+
+    it('is unchanged when no roots are declared', () => {
+      expect(introspectScope('predicate').roots).toEqual(
+        introspectScope('predicate', { scope: 'record' }).roots,
+      );
+      expect(introspectScope('predicate').roots).not.toContain('page');
+    });
+
+    it('does not duplicate a root that is already advertised', () => {
+      const { roots } = introspectScope('predicate', { roots: ['record', 'page'] });
+      expect(roots.filter((r) => r === 'record')).toHaveLength(1);
+    });
+  });
+});