Clean JSON Toolkit

clean-json-toolkit

v0.2.0

Fourth member of the clean-* family. csv handles structured tabular data, text handles unstructured strings, log handles timestamped logs, and json handles nested data — API responses, config files, JSONL event streams.

Pure Python 3 standard library. No jq, no jsonschema, no pip installs.

Scripts

• scripts/inspect.py — profile a .json or .jsonl file: tree of every distinct path with types, counts, and N sample values per path.
• scripts/query.py — jq-style path queries. .key.nested, .key[0], .[] iterate, .key.[].field map. Output modes: --json / --jsonl / --lines / --raw. JSONL inputs implicitly iterate at the top level.
• scripts/flatten.py — flatten nested JSON into dot-notation keys. Reversible with --unflatten. Roundtrip-safe.
• scripts/validate.py — validate against a small schema (required, type, min/max, min_length/max_length, enum, regex, item_type, allow_extra).
• scripts/merge.py (NEW in v0.2.0) — merge multiple JSON files into one. Five strategies: deep (default; recursive merge, arrays replace), shallow (top-level only), array-concat (deep + arrays concatenated), array-uniq (deep + arrays deduped), array-extend (require all inputs to be arrays, then concatenate). The canonical agent need: cascade defaults + user + env-specific configs.
• scripts/patch.py (NEW in v0.2.0) — RFC 6902 JSON Patch. Apply add / remove / replace / move / copy / test operations. Build patches inline with --op --path --value or load from --patch FILE. --strict aborts at first failure, --dry-run writes to stdout instead. Supports "/items/-" append-to-array syntax.
• scripts/check_deps.sh — verify python3.

Quick start

# Inspect
python3 scripts/inspect.py response.json
python3 scripts/inspect.py events.jsonl --max-samples 5

# Query
python3 scripts/query.py data.json '.meta'
python3 scripts/query.py data.json '.users.[].email' --raw
python3 scripts/query.py events.jsonl '.amount' --lines

# Flatten + unflatten roundtrip
python3 scripts/flatten.py config.json flat.json
python3 scripts/flatten.py flat.json nested.json --unflatten

# Validate
python3 scripts/validate.py users.jsonl --schema schema.json

# Merge (NEW v0.2.0) - cascade configs
python3 scripts/merge.py final.json defaults.json user.json env.json
python3 scripts/merge.py all.json events_*.json --strategy array-extend
python3 scripts/merge.py combined.json a.json b.json --strategy array-concat

# Patch (NEW v0.2.0) - RFC 6902 surgical edits
python3 scripts/patch.py doc.json patched.json --op add --path /email --value '"alice@example.com"'
python3 scripts/patch.py config.json updated.json --patch ops.json --strict
python3 scripts/patch.py doc.json /dev/null --op replace --path /age --value 42 --dry-run

Exit codes

Safety

• Pure Python 3 stdlib. No eval, no subprocess, no remote calls.
• All paths validated against safe-path policy (same as the other clean-* toolkits).
• Hand-rolled query path tokenizer.

Pairs well with

• clean-csv-toolkit
• clean-text-toolkit
• clean-log-toolkit

License

MIT