Ticket

Resolves: DEX-294

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Summary

Removes the unused provider graph-validation path (Validator / Validate(*Graph)), the datacatalog validate/ package, handler-level graph validation (Validate / ValidateResource), and dead project.ValidateSpec. Project validation continues to run through the validation engine and RuleProvider rules. Load-time checks that were only in the old path are folded into LoadSpec / ValidateSpec / ExtractResourcesFromSpec where appropriate.

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Changes

• Remove Validator from Provider, CompositeProvider.Validate, and ProjectProvider embedding
• Remove Handler.Validate, BaseProvider.Validate, BaseHandler.Validate, and HandlerImpl.ValidateResource plus implementations
• Delete cli/internal/providers/datacatalog/validate/ and strip Validate from datacatalog provider
• Remove event-stream and RETL Validate paths; run ValidateSQLModelResource during SQL model LoadSpec
• Delete project.ValidateSpec and TestProject_ValidateSpec
• Update validate command comment; trim mock provider; adjust tests
• Set RUDDERSTACK_ACCESS_TOKEN in cli/pkg/exp/project test so NewDeps succeeds in CI without a real login

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Testing

• make lint — pass
• make test — pass
• make test-e2e — requires a valid RUDDERSTACK_ACCESS_TOKEN for apply/destroy against APIs; run in CI or locally with credentials

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Risk / Impact

Medium — Public provider interface no longer includes graph Validate; external implementers must rely on rules and load-time validation only.

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Checklist

• Ticket Linked
• Tests added/updated
• Breaking API change documented in summary