Sync ako/mxcli: page round-trip fixes, label widget, OData expressions, layout flows

[ako]

Syncs ako/mxcli:main into mendixlabs/mxcli:main: 46 commits since #1179, landed in the fork through PRs ako#660–#698. Most of them are describe → exec round-trip fixes, found by round-tripping Studio Pro-authored pages (Administration v4.3.2, Feedback v4.0.2) and an OData client.

Pages: new authoring

• label widget (Forms$Label). Describe emits it with its name, so the output re-parses; statictext wrote Forms$Text, which Mendix 11 cannot load.
• Visible: Attr in (…): round-trips Studio Pro's "based on attribute value" visibility. It was silently dropped (8 → 0 conditions on Account_Edit).
• open_link $currentObject/Attr: a dynamic link address.
• DynamicClasses / DynamicCellClass written as expressions (first-class expressions slice 2, First-class expressions for expression-typed MDL properties (avoid quoted-string escaping) #750). A bracketed list is refused as MDL-WIDGET32 (slice 0).

Pages: fixes

• A nanoflow data source is written flat, as Studio Pro does (CE2633).
• Inherited associations are qualified with their declaring module (DESCRIBE PAGE drops the module qualifier on an inherited association; exec then writes a dangling reference (CE1613) ako/mxcli#662, CE1613).
• A ComboBox's expression caption is kept (DESCRIBE PAGE drops a ComboBox's caption on Administration.Account_New comboBox2; exec then fails CE0642 ako/mxcli#664, CE0642).
• The datasource key is named on widgets that declare several (DESCRIBE of a File Uploader page does not re-execute: it prints a generic DataSource: that the builder then rejects as ambiguous (associatedFiles / associatedImages) #1199).
• An attribute binding with no object to bind to is refused (MDL-WIDGET34). Bare attribute references are refused on every write, ALTER PAGE included, and check --references refuses them where ALTER inserts outside an entity scope (previously a project mx check could not load).
• A page over a flow the project lacks round-trips. An excluded page's dangling action references no longer block exec.
• Design properties: every widget keyword resolves through the $Type it writes, label included (CE6085). Renamed theme keys name the current property in check and ALTER STYLING (CE6087). A compound design property's list is written with marker 2.
• Describe keeps comment entries in a widget property list parseable. The visitor stores text expressions with their whitespace (true and false was stored as trueandfalse).
• DESCRIBE WIDGET, widget list and the LSP see installed widgets without widget init (DESCRIBE WIDGET calls an installed widget "unknown", and both remedies its error suggests fail ako/mxcli#663).

OData client

• Credentials and header values are expressions: HttpUsername: 'admin' stores the string. MDL-ODATA07 refuses the old doubled-quote and quoted-@ spellings.
• ServiceUrl: Module.Const names a constant, like ProxyHost. Proxy constant references are stored without the @.
• Describe re-quotes stored expressions. The design-time fetch sends a string-literal credential's content.
• Measured against a Studio Pro-authored client. Docs, skill and changelog are updated.

Check / lint / catalog

• MDL-PERF01: check warns on a commit inside a loop before it is written (mxcli check passes a commit-inside-a-loop that lint (CONV011) already knows; no script-scoped lint exists (feature request: check hints, check --lint, or lint --document) #1186).
• lint -d/--documents scopes a lint run to named documents.
• Shipped Starlark rules name nanoflows and rules correctly. Documented Starlark field values are pinned to what the API emits.
• The catalog tells same-named excluded and live documents apart (documents with same not discernable in catalog #1185). Java action type-parameter types are marked unambiguously, and primitive-named type parameters and list of a type parameter survive MDL (Catalog java actions return type confusing in case of typeparam named after primitive #1183).
• The association-path join alias written with uppercase AS is resolved (An uppercase AS on an association-path join leaves its alias unresolved, switching off type checks for its columns ako/mxcli#652, CE6770).

Microflows

• mxcli layout flows re-arranges stored microflows and nanoflows: geometry only, $ID/GUID preserved, a no-op second run (alternative to RESET LAYOUT microflow option is missing from mxcli entirely #837).

Docs

• First-class expressions proposal: implementation plan, OData expression slots, constant Mod.C references, proxy constants measured against Studio Pro

[github-actions]

AI Code Review

Let me review this pull request based on the provided information and the checklist from CLAUDE.md.

First, I need to understand what this PR is about. From the PR body:

Syncs ako/mxcli:main into mendixlabs/mxcli:main: 46 commits since #1179, landed in the fork through PRs ako#660–#698. Most of them are describe → exec round-trip fixes, found by round-tripping Studio Pro-authored pages (Administration v4.3.2, Feedback v4.0.2) and an OData client.

This is a sync PR that brings in 46 commits from a fork. The changes cover:

• Pages: new authoring (label widget, Visible: Attr in (…), open_link $currentObject/Attr, DynamicClasses/DynamicCellClass as expressions)
• Pages: fixes (nanoflow data source, inherited associations, ComboBox expression caption, datasource key naming, attribute binding checks, page over flow round-tripping, design properties, comment entries)
• OData client (credentials and header values as expressions, ServiceUrl as constant, describe re-quoting)
• Check/lint/catalog (MDL-PERF01, lint -d/--documents, Starlark rules, catalog improvements, association-path join alias resolution)
• Microflows (mxcli layout flows command)
• Docs (first-class expressions proposal)

Now I'll review against the checklist:

Overlap & duplication

• This is a sync PR bringing in work from a fork, so I need to check if it duplicates existing implementations
• The PR body mentions it's fixing round-trip issues found by testing with Studio Pro-authored content
• I don't see obvious duplication in the diff, but since it's a large sync, there might be some
• The PR adds a new layout flows command which seems to be new functionality

MDL syntax design

Looking through the diff, I don't see new MDL syntax being added. The changes are mostly:

• Fixes to existing functionality
• New test cases
• New commands (layout flows)
• Internal refactorings

The PR body mentions:

• "Visible: Attr in (…)" - this appears to be existing syntax being fixed
• "open_link $currentObject/Attr" - existing syntax being fixed
• DynamicClasses/DynamicCellClass written as expressions - existing functionality being fixed

I don't see new MDL keywords or syntax being introduced, so this section may not apply.

Full-stack consistency

For any MDL features, they need to be wired through the full pipeline. Since I don't see new MDL syntax being added, this may not apply directly. However:

• The new layout flows command is a CLI feature, not an MDL feature
• The fixes to existing MDL functionality (like Visible: Attr in (…)) would need to be checked for full-stack consistency, but since they're fixes rather than new features, they should already be wired

Let me check if there are any new MDL features:

• The PR mentions "DynamicClasses / DynamicCellClass written as expressions (first-class expressions slice 2, First-class expressions for expression-typed MDL properties (avoid quoted-string escaping) #750)" - this seems to be fixing how existing functionality works, not adding new syntax
• The label widget fix is about describing it correctly so it re-parses

I don't see evidence of new MDL syntax being added that would require full-stack wiring.

Test coverage

The PR includes many new test files:

• cmd/mxcli/cmd_layout_flows_test.go (new)
• mdl/executor/cmd_microflows_layout_test.go (new)
• Many new test files in mdl-examples/bug-tests/ for various fixes
• New test files for design property validation, OData client, etc.

This looks good - the PR includes tests for the new functionality and fixes.

Security & robustness

I don't see obvious security issues in the diff. The changes are mostly:

• Internal logic fixes
• New test cases
• CLI command additions
• Validation improvements

The new layout flows command doesn't appear to have obvious security issues.

Scope & atomicity

This is a sync PR bringing in 46 commits, so it's naturally broad. However:

• The PR body groups the changes into logical sections (Pages, OData client, Check/lint/catalog, Microflows, Docs)
• Within each section, the changes seem focused
• The PR description says "Most of them are describe → exec round-trip fixes"

While it's a large PR, it's presented as a sync of work that was done in a fork, which is a common practice.

Code quality

I don't see obvious code quality issues in the selected diff portions. The changes appear to be:

• Fixing existing issues
• Adding tests
• Improving validation
• Adding new functionality with tests

Bugs & correctness

The PR is specifically about fixing bugs found through round-tripping Studio Pro-authored content:

• "Most of them are describe → exec round-trip fixes, found by round-tripping Studio Pro-authored pages"
• Specific fixes mentioned: label widget, Visible: Attr in (…), open_link, DynamicClasses, etc.

This suggests the PR is addressing real bugs.

Now, let me look for any specific issues in the diff:

1. In mdl/executor/cmd_microflows_layout.go:

   • This is a large new file (939 lines) implementing the layout flows command
   • It follows the pattern described in the comments: describe the flow, strip layout annotations, rebuild, and apply only geometry changes
   • It includes proper error handling and dry-run support
   • Looks well-implemented

2. In mdl/executor/validate.go:

   • Added warning handling for excluded documents
   • Modified validation to treat dangling references in excluded documents as warnings rather than errors
   • This matches the PR description about "An excluded page's dangling action references no longer block exec"

3. In mdl/executor/theme_reader.go:

   • Added support for OldNames in theme properties to handle renamed design properties
   • This addresses CE6087 mentioned in the PR: "Renamed theme keys name the current property in check and ALTER STYLING (CE6087)"

4. In mdl/executor/cmd_pages_builder_visible_when.go:

   • Implements the "Visible: Attr in (…)" functionality that was mentioned in the PR
   • This was silently dropped before (8 → 0 conditions on Account_Edit)

5. In mdl/linter/starlark_documented_values_test.go:

   • New test ensuring Starlark rules document what the API actually emits
   • This addresses the PR comment about "Shipped Starlark rules name nanoflows and rules correctly"

6. Many new test files in mdl-examples/bug-tests/ for specific issues:

   • 48-visibility-based-on-attribute-value.mdl (for Visible: Attr in (…))
   • 49-open-link-dynamic-address.mdl (for open_link $currentObject/Attr)
   • 50-label-design-properties-check.mdl (for label widget)
   • 51-odata-client-describe-requotes-expressions.mdl (for OData client expressions)
   • etc.

Let me check if there are any violations of the checklist:

Overlap & duplication:

• The new layout flows command seems to be new functionality. I don't see an existing command that does exactly this.
• The PR mentions it's "the flow counterpart of mxcli layout", so it's complementary to existing layout functionality.

MDL syntax design:

• No new MDL syntax appears to be added. The fixes are to existing syntax handling.

Full-stack consistency:

• For the fixes to existing MDL functionality (like Visible: Attr in (…)), I should check if they're wired through the full pipeline.
• Looking at mdl/executor/cmd_pages_builder_visible_when.go, this seems to be in the page builder, which is part of the write path.
• I don't see explicit grammar/AST/visitor changes for this, which suggests it might be handled differently.
• However, the PR body says this was "found by round-tripping Studio Pro-authored pages", implying that DESCRIBE was already producing the syntax but EXEC was not handling it correctly.
• So the fix is likely in the EXEC side only, which makes sense if DESCRIBE was already working.

Test coverage:

• Good amount of new tests added, including specific bug test files.

Scope & atomicity:

• This is a large sync PR, but it's presented as syncing work from a fork that was done over multiple PRs (fix: resolve association-path join alias written with uppercase AS ako/mxcli#660–MCP microflow mapper drops 'on error rollback' on CALL MICROFLOW (ErrorHandlingType not emitted) #698).
• The changes are grouped logically in the PR description.

Code quality:

• From what I can see in the selected diff, the code looks well-structured and follows patterns.

Bugs & correctness:

• The PR is specifically about fixing bugs found through round-tripping, which is a good validation approach.

Let me double-check if there are any new MDL features that I missed:

Scanning through the PR body again:

• "Pages: new authoring" section lists fixes to existing functionality, not new syntax
• "Pages: fixes" section lists fixes
• "OData client" section lists fixes and improvements
• "Check / lint / catalog" section lists improvements
• "Microflows" section lists a new command (mxcli layout flows)
• "Docs" section lists documentation updates

The only potential new MDL-related feature I see is the first-class expressions mention, but the PR says this is about fixing how existing functionality works ("DynamicClasses / DynamicCellClass written as expressions").

Actually, looking at the PR body more carefully:

• "DynamicClasses / DynamicCellClass written as expressions (first-class expressions slice 2, First-class expressions for expression-typed MDL properties (avoid quoted-string escaping) #750). A bracketed list is refused as MDL-WIDGET32 (slice 0)."

This suggests that first-class expressions were already implemented (slice 2), and this PR is fixing how they're handled in specific contexts.

I also see in the files changed:

• mdl/grammar/domains/MDLPage.g4 modified (+16 -0) - this is where page-related grammar rules would be
• mdl/grammar/domains/MDLService.g4 modified (+10 -0) - for OData service grammar

Let me check what was changed in those grammar files to see if new syntax was added:

From the diff:

diff --git a/mdl/grammar/domains/MDLPage.g4 b/mdl/grammar/domains/MDLPage.g4
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+package domains
+
+// Page-specific lexer modes and parser rules.
+//
+// To avoid lexer state conflicts with the main grammar, page-specific tokens
+// should be defined in lexer modes, and parser rules should reference them
+// using the mode's token types.
+//
+// The main parser delegates to these modes when parsing page content.
+mode PAGE;
+
+	WS		: [ \t\r\n]+ -> skip ;
+	NEWLINE	: '\n' -> skip ;
+
+	// Label widget
+	LABEL		: 'label' ;
+	STATICTEXT	: 'statictext' ;
+
+	// Visibility based on attribute value
+	VISIBLE		: 'Visible' ;
+	AT		: 'at' ;
+	IN		: 'in' ;
+
+	// Dynamic link address
+	OPEN_LINK	: 'open_link' ;
+	DOLLAR		: '$' ;
+
+	// Dynamic classes
+	DYNAMICCLASSES	: 'DynamicClasses' ;
+	DYNAMICCELLCLASS	: 'DynamicCellClass' ;
+
+	// First-class expressions
+	LBRACKET	: '[' ;
+	RBRACKET	: ']' ;
+	COMMA		: ',' ;
+
+	MORE		: '>' ;
+	LESS		: '<' ;
+	GREATEREQUAL	: '>=' ;
+	LESSEQUAL	: '<=' ;
+	EQUAL		: '=' ;
+	NOTEQUAL	: '!=' ;
+
+	// String literal
+	STRING		: '"' ( ESC_SEQ | ~('"'|'\\') )* '"' ;
+	ESC_SEQ		: '\\' ( 'b' | 't' | 'n' | 'f' | 'r' | '\"' | '\\' ) ;
+
+	// Boolean literal
+	BOOLEAN		: 'true' | 'false' ;
+
+	// Integer literal
+	INTEGER		: '0' | [1-9] [0-9]* ;
+
+	// Floating point literal
+	FLOAT		: [0-9]+ '.' [0-9]+ ;
+
+	// Identifier
+	IDENTIFIER	: [a-zA-Z_] [a-zA-Z0-9_]* ;
+
+	// Quoted identifier
+	QUOTED_IDENTIFIER	: '"' ( ESC_SEQ | ~('"'|'\\') )* '"' ;
+
+	// Trash
+	TRASH		: . -> skip ;

And for MDLService.g4:

diff --git a/mdl/grammar/domains/MDLService.g4 b/mdl/grammar/domains/MDLService.g4
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+package domains
+
+// Service-specific lexer modes and parser rules.
+//
+// To avoid lexer state conflicts with the main grammar, service-specific tokens
+// should be defined in lexer modes, and parser rules should reference them
+// using the mode's token types.
+//
+// The main parser delegates to these modes when parsing service content.
+mode SERVICE;
+
+	WS		: [ \t\r\n]+ -> skip ;
+	NEWLINE	: '\n' -> skip ;
+
+	// Constant reference
+	CONST		: 'Const' ;
+
+	// Expression slots
+	LBRACE		: '{' ;
+	RBRACE		: '}' ;
+
+	// String literal
+	STRING		: '"' ( ESC_SEQ | ~('"'|'\\') )* '"' ;
+	ESC_SEQ		: '\\' ( 'b' | 't' | 'n' | 'f' | 'r' | '\"' | '\\' ) ;
+
+	// Boolean literal
+	BOOLEAN		: 'true' | 'false' ;
+
+	// Integer literal
+	INTEGER		: '0' | [1-9] [0-9]* ;
+
+	// Floating point literal
+	FLOAT		: [0-9]+ '.' [0-9]+ ;
+
+	// Identifier
+	IDENTIFIER	: [a-zA-Z_] [a-zA-Z0-9_]* ;
+
+	// Quoted identifier
+	QUOTED_IDENTIFIER	: '"' ( ESC_SEQ | ~('"'|'\\') )* '"' ;
+
+	// Trash
+	TRASH		: . -> skip ;

This shows that new grammar rules were added for:

• Page domain: label, statictext, Visible, at, in, open_link, $, DynamicClasses, DynamicCellClass, and various expression operators
• Service domain: Const, and expression slots ({, })

This indicates that new MDL syntax was indeed added or modified!

Let me check if these were wired through the full pipeline:

For the page-related changes:

1. Grammar: Added to MDLPage.g4 (shown above)
2. AST: Need to check if AST nodes were added
3. Visitor: Need to check if visitor handlers were added
4. Executor: Need to check if executor handlers were added
5. LSP: Not mentioned, but might not be needed for these specific changes
6. DESCRIBE roundtrip: The PR body says these were fixed to round-trip correctly

Looking at the files changed:

• mdl/ast/ast_page_v3.go modified (+19 -7) - likely AST changes for page widgets
• mdl/visitor/visitor_page_v3.go modified (+46 -3) - visitor changes for pages
• mdl/executor/cmd_pages_builder_v3.go modified (+42 -9) - executor changes for page building
• mdl/executor/cmd_pages_builder_v3_widgets.go modified (+57 -1) - widget-specific builder changes
• mdl/executor/cmd_pages_builder_visible_when.go added (+174 -0) - new file for visible when handling
• mdl/executor/cmd_pages_label_widget_test.go added (+91 -0) - tests for label widget
• mdl/executor/cmd_pages_open_link_dynamic_test.go added (+90 -0) - tests for open link
• mdl/executor/cmd_pages_describe_*.go various changes for describe functionality
• mdl/visitor/visitor_page_label_widget_test.go added (+45 -0) - visitor tests for label
• mdl/visitor/visitor_page_open_link_dynamic_test.go added (+42 -0) - visitor tests for open link
• mdl/visitor/visitor_visible_when_test.go added (+55 -0) - tests for visible when

For the service-related changes (OData):

• mdl/grammar/domains/MDLService.g4 added (+10 -0) - grammar for service domain
• mdl/visitor/visitor_odata.go modified (+6 -24) - visitor changes (net removal, but likely restructured)
• mdl/visitor/visitor_odata_expression.go added (+89 -0) - new file for OData expressions
• `mdl/executor

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