feat(language): implicitly convert enum references to arrays

[sanny-io]

Closes #1211

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Validation and policy expressions can now reference enums, including mapped enum values.
  • Generated schemas support checking fields against permitted enum values.

• Bug Fixes

  • Enum references are rejected in unsupported contexts, such as defaults and ordinary function expressions.

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1c51262 and e08879c.

📒 Files selected for processing (8)

• packages/cli/test/ts-schema-gen.test.ts
• packages/language/src/validators/expression-validator.ts
• packages/language/test/enum.test.ts
• packages/sdk/src/ts-schema-generator.ts
• packages/zod/test/factory.test.ts
• packages/zod/test/schema/schema-lite.ts
• packages/zod/test/schema/schema.ts
• packages/zod/test/schema/schema.zmodel

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Enum declarations can now be referenced in policy and validation expressions. The TypeScript schema generator emits enum values as arrays, including mapped values. Zod and ORM tests cover enum-constrained fields and valid or invalid values.

Changes

Enum validation support

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Resolve and validate enum references packages/language/src/zmodel.langium, packages/language/src/zmodel-linker.ts, packages/language/src/validators/expression-validator.ts, packages/language/test/enum.test.ts	Enum declarations resolve as array-valued references. Enum references are accepted in policy and validation attributes and rejected in defaults and function bodies.
Generate enum membership expressions packages/sdk/src/ts-schema-generator.ts, packages/cli/test/ts-schema-gen.test.ts	Generated expressions contain enum field names or their mapped strings. Tests cover both forms.
Validate enum-constrained Address fields packages/zod/test/schema/schema.zmodel, packages/zod/test/schema/schema.ts, packages/zod/test/schema/schema-lite.ts, packages/zod/test/factory.test.ts	Address gains a required type field constrained to RESIDENTIAL or COMMERCIAL. Factory tests cover accepted and rejected values and update existing Address cases.
Exercise ORM enum validation tests/e2e/orm/schemas/enum/*, tests/e2e/orm/client-api/enum.test.ts	The SQLite schema validates Post status against PostStatus. End-to-end tests cover valid statuses and rejection of UNKNOWN.

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes

Change: Feature

Suggested reviewers: ymc9

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to e0887

Enum membership support is mergeable after normal checks; the reported @map failure cannot occur through supported schema generation.

Security Architecture Review

Security architecture risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to e0887

Mapped enum values may be compared with enum names in some authorization rules. If a deny rule uses that combination, it may not take effect. The normal database-backed policy path does not show the same mismatch.

Retained concerns

• Medium · security · inferred: A deny policy using enum membership inside an auth() collection predicate can evaluate false when the principal contains enum field names but the newly generated membership array contains mapped values. An otherwise applicable allow could then remain effective.

Security review details

Security Blast Radius

• inferred — The conditional exposure is limited to applications that define mapped enums and use the new shorthand in auth/value-tree authorization predicates. Where such a predicate is a deny control, its failure can affect operations otherwise permitted by an allow rule; no deployed policy or tenant scope was established.

Security Findings and Attack Paths

• inferred — If an authenticated principal is supplied with a mapped enum’s public field name, a deny condition testing that principal’s collection against the newly generated mapped-value array can be false. The application’s principal-loading path and a concrete exploitable policy remain unverified.

Trust Boundaries and Controls

• observed — The SQL-backed policy path casts enum fields for comparison against mapped database values, providing counterevidence to a general enum-deny bypass. Zod refinement instead rejects a membership mismatch; neither control establishes normalization of in-memory auth collection values.

Hardening Proposals

• proposed — Establish one enum representation for in-memory authorization comparisons and cover mapped enum deny rules using principals in the same shape applications actually supply.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: enum references are implicitly converted to arrays for language validation support.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The PR implements #1211. ReferenceTarget and ZModelLinker.resolveReference support enum references as non-nullable arrays. TsSchemaGenerator emits enum mapped values, or enum names when no mappi…
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The changes stay within #1211. The language changes enable and restrict enum references in validation and policy expressions. The generator changes produce the required enum arrays. The Zod and end-to…
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 0 functions across 8…

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In `@packages/zod/test/factory.test.ts`:
- Around line 608-618: Update the invalid-enum test for Address so its zip field
uses a value valid under the schema’s zip validation, isolating the failure
assertion to the invalid type value UNKNOWN while preserving the existing test
structure.

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ℹ️ Review info

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1390aa0 and 59bbadc.

⛔ Files ignored due to path filters (2)

• packages/language/src/generated/ast.ts is excluded by !**/generated/**
• packages/language/src/generated/grammar.ts is excluded by !**/generated/**

📒 Files selected for processing (11)

• packages/cli/test/ts-schema-gen.test.ts
• packages/language/src/zmodel-linker.ts
• packages/language/src/zmodel.langium
• packages/language/test/attribute-application.test.ts
• packages/sdk/src/ts-schema-generator.ts
• packages/zod/test/factory.test.ts
• packages/zod/test/schema/schema.ts
• packages/zod/test/schema/schema.zmodel
• tests/e2e/orm/client-api/enum.test.ts
• tests/e2e/orm/schemas/enum/schema.ts
• tests/e2e/orm/schemas/enum/schema.zmodel

Included review availability: Your plan includes up to 8 reviews per rolling hour; 7 remain after this review.

[ymc9]

Hi @sanny-io ,

Thanks for working on this. I think there are two issues with this PR:

1. Enums are are now reference target, so they can potentially appear in places where references are allowed (e.g., @default(Role)?, haven't tried though ...).
2. I think x in Enum should also work in access policies, and I believe it already works today, but a caveat is that enum fields can be name mapped with @map, so the current approach that directly translates into an array literal probably broke it.

[sanny-io]

@ymc9

1. Good point. I've gone ahead and fixed that.
2. It does not appear to work today with access policies. I get the following error on the dev branch.

I've added support for @map too.

[ymc9]

@ymc9

1. Good point. I've gone ahead and fixed that.
2. It does not appear to work today with access policies. I get the following error on the dev branch.

I've added support for `@map` too.

Hi @sanny-io , I thought about it again and enum's name mapping seems to have several other issues - probably deserve a separate fix. The ts-schema generator is supposed be agnostic to name mappings, and the name mapper transformer is meant to be the single intercepter that handles it ... though not cleanly yet today.

I've reverted part of your last commit and made some small improvements. Will create separate PRs for remaining issues with @map.