---
layout: commands
page_title: 'Commands: Validate'
description: >
  The `consul validate` command tests that config files are valid by attempting
  to parse them. Useful to ensure a configuration change will not cause consul
  to fail after a restart.
---

# Consul Validate

The `consul validate` command performs a thorough sanity test on Consul
configuration files. For each file or directory given, the command will
attempt to parse the contents just as the `consul agent` command would,
and catch any errors.

This is useful to do a test of the configuration only, without actually
starting the agent. This performs all of the validation the agent would, so
this should be given the complete set of configuration files that are going
to be loaded by the agent. This command cannot operate on partial
configuration fragments since those won't pass the full agent validation.

For more information on the format of Consul's configuration files, read the
consul agent [Configuration Files](/docs/agent/config/agent-config-files)
section.

## Usage

Usage: `consul validate [options] FILE_OR_DIRECTORY...`

Returns 0 if the configuration is valid, or 1 if there are problems.

```shell-session
$ consul validate /etc/consul.d
Configuration is valid!
```