Errors and limits

What to_spec checks

to_spec binds no data. Before it returns a Spec, it parses the file, resolves every name, checks every dimension rule and every degree, and reads every where string and every macro template, including the templates that nothing calls. A piecewise: block is checked as written, against every rule its expansion would be held to, and stays a block.

Anything the language refuses is refused there, so a repository of models validates in CI with no data and no solver. An array that does not bind, or a solver exception, comes from the tool that builds and solves the model.

Every message names what went wrong and what to do about it:

Constraint 'balance', equation 0: 'p_charge' not found.
  Variables: ['dispatch', 'soc']
  Parameters: ['capacity', 'load', 'efficiency']
Check for typos, or ensure 'p_charge' is declared.

What advice warns about

ms.advice(model) returns a tuple of ms.Advice, one per warning, and python -m math_spec check model.yaml prints them. Advice is a warning: the file loads.

kind	The file has…	The advice says…
never-an-axis	a dimension nothing is indexed by, nothing aggregates into and no relation targets	remove it, or keep it knowingly if its declarations are still to come
unbounded	a variable that no constraint, set or curve uses, whose objective term pushes it towards a bound it does not have	give it a finite bound, or the constraint that was meant to define it

Variable 'slack' makes this model unbounded: no constraint names it, and
bounds.lower is -inf, which is the direction a +slack term improves a minimize
objective in. No data can change that, so the solve would answer `unbounded`
and name nothing.
Give it a finite bounds.lower, or the constraint that was meant to define it.

advice is silent where the answer depends on the data: an objective coefficient that is a parameter, or a where: that leaves one slice of a variable with no constraint row.

Which error you get

MathSpecError	The root. Everything below is an instance of it
LanguageError	Something in the model: a construct outside the language, a dimension set that does not compose, or a name that nothing declares
SchemaError	Something in the file: an unknown key, a malformed declaration, or a bad symbol table
DimensionError	Dimensions that disagree, such as a constraint whose expression does not equal its dims

Every one of these is reproducible from the YAML alone. An engine that binds numbers or calls a solver adds its own errors below MathSpecError.

What the language will not express

Each of these was asked for and refused, and the limits gives the reasons.

Not in the language	Instead
variable * variable in a bound or a piecewise: link	The objective and the constraints take it. Everywhere else, use a parameter coefficient (expressions)
sum(x, over=d) * sum(y, over=d)	Multiply before you reduce, or constrain a variable to equal the reduction
degree 3 (x * y * z)	A variable constrained to equal one product, multiplied by the third
** with a variable in it	x * x for a square. Over variable-free operands ** is in the language
arithmetic in bounds:	A name or a number. Ship the derived column as data
time-series processing (resample, cluster, interpolate, align), file IO, units	Data preparation. Pass a parameter
indicator constraints	sos: is where that landed (piecewise)
multi-objective	There is one objective: block. Weight the goals into one expression
arbitrary array operations (merge, reindex, apply_ufunc)	Data preparation
filling a missing value (.fillna)	Data preparation, or a where if the coordinate should not exist. Inside the language, only shift(..., edge=) fills (absence)

The language has no escape hatch. Math it cannot express is a gap in the language, and a gap closes as a macro, a primitive or a formulation (the limits).