coding-standards

jhelm Coding Standards

Style

• Indentation: Tabs (enforced by spring-javaformat-maven-plugin)
• Naming: Classes PascalCase, methods/variables camelCase, constants UPPER_SNAKE_CASE
• Javadoc: HTML tags for links, {@code true}/{@code false} for booleans, accurate @param/@return tags

Lombok

• @Getter/@Setter for simple fields, @Data for POJOs/DTOs
• @Builder, @NoArgsConstructor, @AllArgsConstructor for complex objects
• @Slf4j for logging
• @Accessors(fluent = true) for internal DSL-like classes

Modern Java 21

• Text blocks ("""...""") for multi-line strings
• Enhanced switch (arrow syntax)
• Streams/Lambdas for collection manipulation
• try-with-resources for system resource streams (e.g., Files.walk())

Error Handling

• SLF4J via @Slf4j — no System.out.println in production code (CLI output in jhelm-cli is the exception)
• Descriptive exceptions; always include original cause when rethrowing
• Prefer must* function variants when strict validation is required

Dependencies

• Manage versions in root pom.xml <dependencyManagement>
• Define dependency versions as properties in root pom.xml <properties> (unless managed by Spring Boot parent)
• Keep jhelm-gotemplate free of Spring dependencies

Size Guidelines

Two thresholds apply — consider and enforce:

Scope	Consider refactoring	Checkstyle enforces (build fails)
File	> 500 lines	> 800 lines
Method	> 50 lines	> 80 lines

Consider (500 lines / 50 lines): A warning signal. Before adding more code to a large file or method, ask whether it should be split. Extract helpers, separate concerns, or move related methods to a dedicated class.

Enforce (1000 lines / 80 lines): Hard limit. The build fails at validate phase. Refactoring is required — no exceptions except the suppressions below.

Current suppressions (checkstyle-suppressions.xml):

• Lexer.java, Parser.java — state machines; long methods are inherent to the pattern
• HelmChartTemplates.java — methods return static YAML text blocks, not logic
• *Test.java — test files are exempt from both size limits