Any-rule is a multi-platform regular expression tool that provides a curated catalog of over 70 ready-to-use patterns for validating and extracting common data formats. The project separates its static regex collection from editor-specific plugins, allowing the same pattern library to be accessed through VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, Alfred Workflow, and a web interface.
The tool enables keyword-based pattern retrieval, letting users search for the correct regex by typing descriptive terms rather than remembering exact syntax. It covers a broad range of validation needs including email addresses, URLs, dates, IP addresses, phone numbers, and identification numbers, with particular depth in Chinese-specific formats such as ID card numbers, license plates, social credit codes, and stock codes. Beyond validation, the library also supports data extraction tasks like matching Chinese characters, HTML tags, and HTML comments from text.
Each pattern is defined as a static string literal, and the tool includes a visual diagram feature that helps users understand how a selected regex works. The documentation and installation surface covers the web interface, VS Code extension, IntelliJ plugin, and Alfred workflow, all drawing from the same underlying pattern catalog.
