How to trigger Clarity form validation without simulating focus events?

How can I trigger the validation of the new Clarity 0.13 forms? I'm using reactive forms and I want to trigger the validation without actually focusing/unfocusing the inputs. This will be necessary in my application when a user hits "Save" before completing the form. Currently I can't think of a way to trigger the Clarity error state without triggering actual blur events on the DOM elements which seems way to complicated for such a simple task.

Here is a stackblitz where you can reproduce the problem: https://stackblitz.com/edit/clarity-light-theme-v013-6s2qtq

Naturally nothing happens when clicking "Validate Form" because I don't know what to call in the function..

The newest version supports marking clarity forms as dirty - citing the docs:

import {ViewChild, Component} from "@angular/core";
import {FormGroup, FormControl, Validators} from "@angular/forms";

@Component({
    template: `
    <form clrForm [formGroup]="exampleForm">
        <input clrInput formControlName="sample" />
        <button class="btn btn-primary" type="submit" (click)="submit()">Submit</button>
    </form>
    `
})
export class ReactiveFormsDemo {
    @ViewChild(ClrForm) clrForm;

    exampleForm = new FormGroup({
        sample: new FormControl('', Validators.required),
    });

    submit() {
        if (this.exampleForm.invalid) {
            this.clrForm.markAsDirty();
        } else {
            // ...
        }
    }
}