Reject Forward Reference

Review ask

As a clinical trial statistician or programmer, challenge anything in this benchmark: describe a problem in Comments, or propose a fix with the Edit button on any source file.

Task: Is this a specification error a study team could realistically make, and should the build stop on it rather than continue?
Inputs: Do they trigger the failure for the reason the summary gives?
Expected failure: Is this the right error, raised at the right point, and would it tell the programmer what to fix?

The other tabs beside Comments are background for assessment, not under review.

Summary

EditUnder reviewWhat this benchmark means

README.md

Goal: carry the collected analysis value in AVAL and add its doubled value in AVALDOUBLED, one record per collected result.

Input: collected laboratory (LB) results carrying the collected result in AVAL, identified by study and subject.

Variables:

AVAL would contain the collected result, taken from AVAL in the laboratory input; missing when the collected result is missing.
AVALDOUBLED would contain AVAL multiplied by 2; missing when the collected result is missing.

Note: the doubled value is listed before the collected value it reads, and a value may read only values listed before it, so the run is rejected before any data is read and no artifact is accepted.

How to fix

List AVAL before AVALDOUBLED, so every value reads only values already computed:

- name: AVAL
  type: float
  derivation: LB.AVAL
- name: AVALDOUBLED
  type: float
  derivation:
    compute:
      expr: "AVAL * 2"

Expected failure

Editthe run is rejected; no artifact is accepted

expected/error.yaml

phase: validation
condition: forward_reference
requirement: REQ-0071

expected/error.yaml

phase: validation
condition: forward_reference
spec_paths:
  - columns.AVALDOUBLED.derivation.compute
requirement: REQ-0071
context:
  column: AVALDOUBLED
  dependency: AVAL

YAML specification

1 spec file

spec.yaml

Edit34 lines

1schema_version: "1.0"2domain: ADLB3keys: [STUDYID, USUBJID]4input:5  LB: {path: input/lb.csv, types: {AVAL: float}}67output:8  path: adlb.csv9  columns: [STUDYID, USUBJID, AVAL, AVALDOUBLED]1011columns:12  - name: STUDYID13    type: str14    label: Study Identifier15    derivation: LB.STUDYID1617  - name: USUBJID18    type: str19    label: Unique Subject Identifier20    derivation: LB.USUBJID2122  # Intentionally out of order: AVALDOUBLED reads AVAL, which is declared23  # after it, so the specification is rejected before any data is read.24  - name: AVALDOUBLED25    type: float26    label: Doubled Analysis Value27    derivation:28      compute:29        expr: "AVAL * 2"3031  - name: AVAL32    type: float33    label: Analysis Value34    derivation: LB.AVAL

Inputs

Under review1 source file

input/lb.csv

Edit1 row

input/lb.csv
STUDYID	USUBJID	AVAL
YAMAA-01		10

Unexpected Output

Under reviewNo artifact is produced

No fixture files in this directory.

Shaded columns are derived— = missing value

Comments and assessment materials

Dataset Name	Variable Name	Variable Label	Type	Computational Method	Origin
ADLB	STUDYID	Study Identifier	character	Copy value from LB.STUDYID.	Predecessor
ADLB	USUBJID	Unique Subject Identifier	character	Copy value from LB.USUBJID.	Predecessor
ADLB	AVALDOUBLED	Doubled Analysis Value	numeric	Compute AVAL * 2.	Derived
ADLB	AVAL	Analysis Value	numeric	Copy value from LB.AVAL.	Predecessor

Version	Date	Author	Description
1.3	2026-09-29	yamaa docs build	Show study codelist names, external dictionaries, and ISO 8601 formats in variable rows; list the document's codelist values and metadata
1.2	2026-09-29	yamaa docs build	Classify ADaM copies from a declared input as Predecessor and recodes as Derived, and SDTM recodes of locally derived columns as Derived
1.1	2026-09-29	yamaa docs build	Resolve lookups into the donor record they select, and give every derivation shape a plain-language rule instead of its raw YAML
1.0		yamaa docs build	Initial generation from spec.yaml

How to fix

input/lb.csv

Comments

Mapping spec