BraceJSON — Privacy-first JSON workbench

BraceJSON is a privacy-first JSON workbench that runs entirely inside your browser. Every operation happens on your machine — no JSON, no file, no payload you handle is ever sent to a server. WHAT IT DOES • Auto-formats raw JSON pages. Visit any URL that returns JSON — an API response, a GitHub raw file, a webhook payload, a localhost endpoint — and BraceJSON replaces the page with a readable tree view, with search and secret-detection badges. A one-click "Open in workbench" handoff sends the JSON straight into the full editor. • Format & validate. Clean indentation, precise line:column errors for invalid input. • Repair broken JSON. Handles trailing commas, single quotes, smart quotes, unquoted keys, missing colons, mismatched brackets, JS-style comments, NaN/Infinity, and more. Conservative by design: if repair can't produce valid JSON, your input is left untouched. • Detect & redact secrets. Built-in scanners for JWTs, AWS access keys, email addresses, Luhn-valid credit card numbers, and high-entropy values near sensitive keys (token, password, api_key). Add your own regex patterns for organization-specific secrets. • Convert to YAML, XML, CSV, or TypeScript interface types. • Diff two JSON documents semantically (by structure, not by text lines). • Tree view with search on both the input and the output. WHY "PRIVACY-FIRST" BraceJSON was built around a single design choice: every operation happens inside your browser, never on a server. This isn't a promise on a webpage. It's enforced by a strict Content-Security-Policy (connect-src 'none') that physically blocks the extension from making any outbound network call. Verify it yourself in 30 seconds with Chrome DevTools — open the Network tab, paste any JSON, click every button. You'll see zero outbound requests. WHAT IT STORES Only your preferences, in your browser's local storage on this device: • Theme preference (light or dark) • Any custom secret-detection patterns you create • Master on/off toggle for the auto-viewer • Per-site exclusion list for the auto-viewer Your JSON is never persisted. It lives only in the page while you're using it. WHAT IT COSTS Free. No ads, no accounts, no analytics, no cookies, no newsletter. Always. USE CASES • Debugging API responses without copying JSON into a third-party formatter • Repairing malformed configuration files • Spotting accidentally-exposed tokens before sharing payloads • Converting between JSON and YAML / XML / CSV / TypeScript without leaving the browser • Comparing two API responses semantically PERMISSIONS, IN PLAIN LANGUAGE • "Read your data on all websites": required so BraceJSON can detect raw JSON pages and replace them with the workbench view. The extension makes no outbound network requests — only inspects the current page's contents to render the formatted view in place. • "Storage": stores your theme preference, custom patterns, and preferences. Local to your browser; never synced or transmitted. Built and maintained by Vaibhav Pathak — an independent consultant with a technical and IT delivery background. Side project, no monetization, no roadmap-driven feature creep. Built to be a trustworthy and reliable workbench for JSON that actually matters — the kind with real tokens, real data, real stakes. Website: https://bracejson.com