OneRoster CSV Validator: Strict 1EdTech Data Integrity & Pre-Flight Linter

OneRoster CSV Validator performs pre-flight validation on OneRoster v1.1 and v1.2 CSV roster bundles before SIS, Clever, or ClassLink ingestion, auditing foreign-key referential integrity, eliminating orphan enrollments, enforcing bulk-versus-delta partitioning, and sanitizing encoding traps.

Its core rules are strict. The manifest file must sit at the ZIP archive's root, never nested in a subfolder, must declare the exact spec version (oneroster.version,1.1 or 1.2), and must list every CSV file present in the exchange - any file in the archive missing from the manifest, or vice versa, gets the package rejected.

propertyName,value
oneroster.version,1.1
file.orgs,bulk
file.users,bulk
file.courses,bulk
file.classes,bulk
file.enrollments,bulk
file.academicSessions,bulk

One exchange bundle must be strictly one operational mode: bulk exchange represents a complete master snapshot and must not contain dateLastModified or non-active status columns, while delta exchange represents incremental changes and every row must carry a valid ISO 8601 UTC timestamp and a status of active or tobedeleted - mixing the two formats in one archive is a fatal validation failure. Referential integrity is checked across the full dependency chain from orgs.csv through courses.csv, classes.csv, and enrollments.csv to users.csv, with zero tolerance for a single orphan link such as an enrollment pointing to a deleted student ID.

Role values in users.csv and enrollments.csv must match the exact 1EdTech enum (v1.1: administrator/proctor/student/teacher; v1.2 adds aide/guardian/parent/staff), with vendor-custom roles like "substitute" or "dean" required to map to a valid enum rather than passing through unchanged. Files must be UTF-8 without a byte-order mark, since Microsoft Excel frequently prepends \xEF\xBB\xBF to CSV exports and silently corrupts the first column header (sourcedId becomes unmatched), and fields containing commas, quotes, or newlines must follow RFC 4180 quoting. The validator also runs cycle detection on orgs.csv to catch circular parent-org references, and it never invents a synthetic sourcedId during reconciliation - authoritative SIS primary keys are preserved as-is or the row is flagged.

Use it when validating or debugging SIS roster export packages (ZIP archives or CSV directories) for OneRoster v1.1/v1.2 compliance - diagnosing why Clever or ClassLink rejected a roster zip, checking for orphaned userSourcedIds in enrollments.csv, validating bulk-vs-delta mode consistency, sanitizing UTF-8 BOM characters, or auditing relational integrity across manifest.csv, orgs.csv, users.csv, courses.csv, classes.csv, enrollments.csv, and academicSessions.csv. It also fits a CI/CD pre-flight step catching corrupted roster records before a nightly SIS sync.

Do not use it for OneRoster's REST/OAuth 2.0 API endpoints - it is strictly a CSV table-binding validator - for generating synthetic or fabricated student PII, or for generic non-standard CSV spreadsheets that don't follow the 1EdTech specification.

Input is a OneRoster CSV roster bundle, typically a ZIP archive containing manifest.csv and the core entity CSVs. Output is a line-numbered pre-flight validation report classifying the result as passed or failed, listing referential-integrity errors (orphan enrollments, unresolved foreign keys), role-enum violations, bulk/delta mode inconsistencies, BOM-stripping warnings, and org-hierarchy cycle detections.

EdTech and SIS integration engineers validating roster exports before ingestion by Clever, ClassLink, or a district's student information system - catching orphan enrollments, encoding corruption, and mode-mixing errors before they fail an import or corrupt downstream student records.