RedactEngine: Sensitive Data Redaction for TypeScript

RedactEngine is a sensitive data redaction engine for TypeScript with recursive object sanitization, string masking, logger wrappers, console bridging, and safe error handling. It gives your app one redaction layer instead of relying on every callsite to remember what is safe to print.

It is designed for developers building APIs, SaaS dashboards, CLIs, workers, billing flows, auth systems, or webhook handlers where logs are necessary but accidental secret exposure is costly. Use it when you want safe console output, structured logging inputs, provider-specific presets, and predictable handling for nested objects, Error, Map, Set, circular values, and max-depth limits.

🤖 Ask your coding assistant

"Audit my codebase to see if adding the redact-engine package on npm is beneficial. If so, explain why and draft an integration plan identifying logger entrypoints, custom redaction rules, provider presets, and console bridge points using the package README and source code."

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Why use RedactEngine?

Feature	Without RedactEngine	With RedactEngine
Sensitive Fields	Every logger call needs manual filtering.	🛡️ Sensitive Fields. Central key-pattern redaction handles common secret names.
Token Strings	Bearer tokens, JWTs, cookies, and assignment-style secrets can leak in messages.	🎟️ Token Strings. String rules redact common token formats anywhere in text.
Provider Logs	Stripe-like IDs and keys require custom sanitizer code.	🔌 Provider Logs. Use stripeRedactionPreset or add your own preset.
Complex Values	Circular objects, errors, maps, and sets often break or leak details.	🧩 Complex Values. Built-in traversal sanitizes common runtime values safely.
Console Usage	Existing console.* calls bypass logger sanitization.	🖥️ Console Bridge. createConsoleBridge() routes console calls through a redacting logger.

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Installation

Install RedactEngine via your preferred package manager:

# npm
npm install redact-engine

# pnpm
pnpm add redact-engine

# bun
bun add redact-engine

# yarn
yarn add redact-engine

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Quick Start

import { createLogger, stripeRedactionPreset } from "redact-engine";

const logger = createLogger({
  level: "info",
  presets: [stripeRedactionPreset],
});

logger.error("payment failed for api_key=sk_live_abc123", {
  headers: {
    authorization: "Bearer eyJhbGciOi...",
    cookie: "session=secret",
  },
  customerId: "cus_123",
});

// Logs to the underlying console sink:
// "payment failed for api_key=[REDACTED]" {
//   headers: {
//     authorization: "Bearer [REDACTED]",
//     cookie: "session=[REDACTED]"
//   },
//   customerId: "[CUSTOMER_ID]"
// }

Output values are redacted before they are passed to the underlying console sink.

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Core Usage

Redact strings

import { redactString } from "redact-engine";

redactString("Authorization: Bearer secret-token");
// "Authorization: Bearer [REDACTED]"

Redact structured values

import { redactValue } from "redact-engine";

const safe = redactValue({
  email: "person@example.com",
  apiKey: "sk_live_123",
  nested: {
    token: "secret",
  },
});

redactValue() returns RedactedValue<T>. Primitive values retain useful types, while values transformed during redaction—such as dates, errors, maps, sets, circular references, and censored properties—are represented by their actual output shapes. Narrow properties that may have become censor strings before treating them as nested objects.

Create a custom redactor

import { createRedactor } from "redact-engine";

const redactor = createRedactor({
  keyPatterns: [/tenantSecret/i],
  stringRules: [
    {
      pattern: /internal-[a-z0-9]+/gi,
      replacement: "[INTERNAL_ID]",
    },
  ],
});

const safe = redactor.redactValue(payload);

Bridge existing console calls

import { createConsoleBridge, createLogger } from "redact-engine";

const logger = createLogger({ level: "warn" });
const restoreConsole = createConsoleBridge(logger);

console.error("token=secret");

restoreConsole();

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API Reference

Export	Purpose
redactString(value)	Redacts sensitive token-like text in a string.
redactValue(value)	Recursively redacts sensitive fields and string values.
RedactedValue<T>	Describes the runtime output shape of recursive redaction.
createRedactor(options)	Creates a reusable redactor with custom rules and presets.
createLogger(options)	Creates a redacting logger with level filtering.
createConsoleBridge(logger, console?)	Routes console.debug/info/log/warn/error through a redacting logger.
defaultRedactionPreset	Built-in secret, token, cookie, JWT, and credential rules.
stripeRedactionPreset	Stripe-style key, ID, email, card, and phone redaction rules.

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Development

To build the package and generate TypeScript declarations:

bun run build

To run the package unit tests:

bun run test

To run the package type check:

bun run typecheck

After building, verify the published runtime exports:

bun run test:smoke

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Related Packages

Compose the engine family

The engine packages use small structural interfaces instead of depending on one another. A RedactEngine logger can therefore be injected directly into the server-side engines, while its redactor can sanitize BoundaryEngine error details:

import {
  createBoundaryErrorHandler,
  createRouteBoundary,
} from "boundary-engine";
import { RateEngine } from "rate-engine";
import { createLogger, redactValue } from "redact-engine";
import { SessionEngine } from "session-engine";

const logger = createLogger({ level: "info" });

const boundary = createRouteBoundary({
  errorHandler: createBoundaryErrorHandler({
    production: process.env.NODE_ENV === "production",
    logger,
    redact: redactValue,
  }),
});

const rateEngine = new RateEngine({
  redis,
  buckets,
  policies,
  logger,
});

const sessionEngine = new SessionEngine({
  logger,
  validateSession,
});

This keeps installation modular: applications opt into the engines they need, and no engine pulls another engine into its runtime dependency graph.

• rate-engine for policy-driven rate limiting.
• boundary-engine for safe HTTP route boundaries.
• secret-engine for context-bound encryption and secret handling.
• session-engine for browser session and cache lifecycle management.

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License

MIT © Christian Paul