mta-rules

name	mta-rules
metadata	{"author":"rhoai3-coding-demo","version":"1.0.0","platform-family":"mta","platform-baseline":"repo","ocp-baseline":"repo","skill-group":"Application Modernization"}
description	Use when creating custom rules for MTA 8.2 analysis, including YAML rule syntax, rule metadata (labels, categories, effort), provider conditions (java, builtin, go, csharp, python, nodejs), logical conditions, condition chaining, custom variables, rule actions, and rulesets. Do NOT use for CLI workflows (use mta-cli), web UI workflows (use mta-ui), or AI-assisted resolution (use mta-lightspeed).

MTA Rules Development

Use this skill to ground Migration Toolkit for Applications (MTA) 8.2 custom rule authoring in the official Configuring and Using Rules guide. MTA rules instruct the analyzer to detect problematic patterns in application source code before migration to target technologies.

Source Grounding

Read references/source-capture.md before using product behavior. Official Red Hat documentation is product authority.

YAML Rule Structure

Rules consist of metadata, conditions, and actions:

ruleID: <unique_id>
category: mandatory|optional|potential
effort: <integer>
description: <summary>
labels:
  - konveyor.io/source=<source_tech>
  - konveyor.io/target=<target_tech>
links:
  - url: <hyperlink>
    title: <title>
when:
  <condition(s)>
message: "<message>"
tag:
  - <tag_1>, <tag_2>

Rule Metadata

• ruleID: unique within the ruleset
• category: mandatory (must fix), optional (should fix), potential (needs examination)
• effort: integer estimating story points to resolve
• labels: key=val pairs; reserved prefixes konveyor.io/source, konveyor.io/target, konveyor.io/include (values: always or never)

Label Selectors

Use --label-selector to filter rules by labels with logical AND (&&), OR (||), NOT (!), and grouping (). Use --dep-label-selector to filter dependency-generated incidents.

Providers and Capabilities

Provider	Capabilities	Support Level
java	referenced, dependency	Fully supported
builtin	xml, json, filecontent, file, hasTags	Fully supported
go	referenced, dependency	Fully supported
csharp	referenced	Developer Preview
python	referenced	Developer Preview
nodejs	referenced	Developer Preview

Java Provider

java.referenced: search by pattern (regex), location (IMPORT, PACKAGE, TYPE, ANNOTATION, IMPLEMENTS_TYPE, RETURN_TYPE, VARIABLE_DECLARATION, FIELD, METHOD, METHOD_CALL, CLASS, CONSTRUCTOR_CALL, INHERITANCE), and annotated (annotation inspection with elements).

java.dependency: check dependencies by name (required), nameregex, upperbound, lowerbound.

Builtin Provider

• builtin.xml: XPath queries with optional filepaths and namespaces
• builtin.json: XPath queries on JSON files with optional filepaths
• builtin.filecontent: regex pattern with optional filePattern
• builtin.file: find files matching a name pattern
• builtin.hasTags: check application tags (logical AND for multiple)

Go, C#, Python, Node.js Providers

Go supports referenced (pattern) and dependency (name, bounds). C# supports referenced with pattern and location (CLASS, METHOD, FIELD, ALL). Python and Node.js support referenced with pattern only.

Logical Conditions

• and: all child conditions must match
• or: any child condition must match
• Nesting: combine and/or at multiple levels

Condition Chaining

Use as to save a condition's output, from to reference it, and Mustache templates ({{name.filepaths}}) for variable interpolation. Set ignore: true on conditions used only for chaining. In Java rules, capitalize the variable (e.g., {{annotation.Filepaths}}).

Custom Variables

Capture data from matched source lines using customVariables:

customVariables:
  - pattern: '([A-z]+)\.get\(\)'
    name: VariableName
message: "Found generic call - {{ VariableName }}"

Rule Actions

• Message: informative text in the report with optional links
• Tag: categorize code with key=val pairs; tag-only rules do not generate issues

Rulesets

Group rules in a directory with a ruleset.yaml file:

name: "Ruleset name"
description: "Ruleset description"
labels:
  - key=val

Rules inherit ruleset labels. Pass the directory with --rules=<dir>.

Workflow

1. Identify the migration path and target technology.
2. Choose the appropriate provider and capability for the condition.
3. Read references/official-doc-extraction.md for field details and examples.
4. Write the rule with metadata, condition, and action.
5. Test with mta-cli analyze --input <app> --output <dir> --rules <rule.yaml>.
6. Review the static report at <output>/static-report/index.html.

Related Skills

• Use mta-intellij for IntelliJ IDEA plugin analysis workflows.
• Use mta-cli for command-line analysis workflows.
• Use mta-ui for web console analysis workflows.
• Use mta-lightspeed for AI-assisted code resolution.

References

• references/source-capture.md
• references/official-doc-extraction.md