Structuring and Organizing Rules

The rules section of template-to-app-rules.json defines the rules followed by the template.

The section is made up of three parts:

Action: Designates the operation to perform.
Path: Defines the path to the location where the action is performed.
AppliesTo: Determines the asset files to apply the rules to. Consists of a name.

Rules can be divided into multiple files, which are executed in the order in which you list them in template-info.json. Be sure that a rule that runs first doesn’t refer to a constant referenced in a rule that runs later.

Here are a few guidelines to consider when working with multiple rules files:

One rules file can contain all constants, another all actions.
Use multiple rules when actions grow to 500 lines. You could divide them into a rules file for dashboards, another for datasets or the dataflow.
If you have content to be used by many rules, include it in the first rules file to be executed.

Here is a simple example, a rule for changing the title text on a dashboard:

1{
2    "name": "Update dashboard title",
3    "appliesTo": [
4        {
5            "type": "dashboard",
6            "name": "DashboardOne"
7        }
8    ],
9    "actions": [
10        {
11            "action": "set",
12            "description": "change the title text of the dashboard",
13            "path": "$.state.widgets.title_text.parameters.text",
14            "value": "${Variables.DashboardTitle}"
15        }
16    ]
17}

Make rules more powerful using functions. See Use Functions in Rules.