Rules referenceReference
The detailed grammar behind the rules on the Rules: validation & keys page — how to write conditions, comparisons and default values. (For the list of every rule type, see that page; for currency and unit conversions, see Currency & unit conversions.)
Conditional rules — rule type conditional (or its alias validation) — apply a rule only when a condition holds. These three forms all read the same:
required if <condition>[if] <condition> [then] required(<condition>) then required— e.g.(total > 100) then required
| Operator | Meaning |
|---|---|
is = == | Equals |
is not != <> | Not equal |
> >= | Greater than · greater-or-equal (date- and number-aware) |
< <= | Less than · less-or-equal |
Combine terms with AND, OR or XOR — precedence is AND > XOR > OR. A quoted value containing one of those words is never split ("Research and Development" stays whole).
| A value can be | Meaning |
|---|---|
123 | a number |
"Active" | a quoted string |
2026-07-01 | an ISO date |
start_date | another field's value |
empty | the emptiness test (unquoted; quoted "empty" compares literally) |
system date | the save date — also current date, today, now |
current year | the current year (e.g. 2026) — also this year; for year fields |
current month | the current month, YYYY-MM (e.g. 2026-07) — for month fields |
<date>.year | a calendar part of another date field — also .month, .day, .quarter, .week |
HEADER.status or status from HEADER — so a line-item rule can read a header value. Field names are matched tolerantly (case, spaces, near-miss spellings).Comparisons & ranges. On a required rule (or as a bare conditional value), the Value cell can hold a comparison — in words or symbols — checked against the field's value:
| Value cell | Means |
|---|---|
greater or equal to start_date | value ≥ start_date |
less than 100 | value < 100 |
>= start_date | the symbolic form of the same |
equal to X · not equal to X | must match / must differ |
between <low> and <high> | an inclusive range (the between rule type) |
Direction words: greater, more, later, after (↑) · less, smaller, earlier, before (↓), each optionally with or equal to. The operand is a number, ISO date, quoted string, another field, or the "today" words. The tokens current year / current month and a field.year date-part accessor are also valid operands.
Default values. Any rule's Value cell can pre-fill the field — a literal is fixed; a reference or calculation is evaluated when the form (or a new line row) opens:
| Value cell | Fills with |
|---|---|
default value "Created" | the literal text "Created" |
default = 0 | the number 0 |
default = HEADER.currency_code | a value copied from another field |
default = amount / 100 | a calculation |
system date · today · now | the record's creation date — pair with display to show it read-only |