---
title: "Enforcing YARA metadata standards"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/enforcing-yara-metadata-standards-4biuwb2s4
source_url: https://virustotal.github.io/yara-x/blog/enforcing-yara-metadata-standards
type: article
source: "YARA-X"
published: 2026-08-23T12:22:08.815Z
updated: 2026-08-23T12:47:21.773Z
tags: ["security", "malware", "vscode"]
reading_time: 3
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Enforcing YARA metadata standards

**[YARA-X](https://daily.dev/sources/yara-x)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

The YARA Language Server now supports a metadataValidation configuration that lets teams enforce metadata standards for YARA rules directly in the editor. Configured via VS Code's settings.json, it defines required fields (like author or version) and expected data types (string, integer, float, bool) for metadata identifiers. The language server then flags missing required fields or type mismatches in real time as rules are written, improving consistency, collaboration, onboarding, and automation across shared YARA rule corpora.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://virustotal.github.io/yara-x/blog/enforcing-yara-metadata-standards>

## Questions this post answers

### How do I enforce required metadata fields like author or version in YARA rules?

The YARA Language Server supports a metadataValidation setting configured in VS Code's settings.json. Each entry specifies an identifier (the metadata field name), an optional required boolean that triggers a warning when the field is missing, and an optional type field (string, integer, float, or bool) that flags type mismatches in real time as rules are edited.

_Teams standardizing YARA rule metadata can follow tooling updates like this on daily.dev._

### What data types can I validate for YARA rule metadata fields?

Metadata values in YARA rules can be validated against four types using the language server's metadataValidation configuration: string, integer, float, and bool. If a rule's metadata value does not match the specified type, the editor shows a warning immediately, before the rule is committed.

_Developers configuring editor tooling for security rule standards can track changes like this on daily.dev._

---

Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#malware](https://daily.dev/tags/malware), [#vscode](https://daily.dev/tags/vscode)

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