Local payload preflight
Processes one JSON payload offline before it is shared in debugging notes, tickets or workflow examples.
Day 052 / n8n / Workflow Automation
Webhook Payload Sanitizer
/ Overview
A dependency-free Python CLI that masks or removes credential-like values from local webhook JSON while preserving useful payload structure.
Webhook payloads are useful when debugging automations, but they can also contain tokens, passwords, cookies or other credentials that should not be copied into logs, tickets or examples. A small offline tool needs to reduce that risk without transmitting the payload or destroying its useful shape.
/ Provided servicesClear thinking.
Clear thinking.
Practical delivery.
Two sanitizing strategies
Masks sensitive values to preserve structure or removes matched key-value pairs entirely.
Data-minimized audit
Reports only matched paths and counts while keeping every redacted value out of the report.
/ Solution
Webhook Payload Sanitizer reads one bounded local JSON file, rejects duplicate keys, recursively visits objects and arrays, normalizes camelCase and punctuated field names, and masks or removes conservative credential-like keys. Optional custom keys extend the policy. The separate report contains only redacted paths, counts and processing metadata. It does not call a webhook, detect secrets inside free text or guarantee that every sensitive value has been found, so human review remains required.
/ Impact
Recursive object and array traversal
Mask and remove strategies
Conservative credential-key matching
CamelCase and punctuated-key normalization
Repeatable custom sensitive keys
Value-free path and count report
Bounded file, depth and node limits
Ten standard-library tests
Python standard library
Argparse, JSON, pathlib, regular expressions and dataclasses provide a dependency-free command-line tool.
Conservative key policy
Normalized exact keys and credential-related key parts identify common secret-bearing fields without claiming full secret detection.
Unittest
Ten tests cover nested data, arrays, both strategies, custom keys, value-free reports, duplicate keys and depth limits.