json-audit-tm

A lightweight TypeScript library to compare two JSON states and generate structured audit logs.
It detects added, removed, modified, and type-changed fields, supports custom display names, array identity keys, and metadata such as actor and timestamp.
Works with React, Angular, and Node.js.

✨ Features

• Deep diff between two JSON states
• Actions: included, excluded, modified, type_changed
• Friendly labels via displayNameMap
• Ignore specific paths with ignorePaths
• Array identity keys (arrayIdentity) for stable matching
• Policies for null vs missing fields and float tolerance (numberEpsilon)
• ESM + CJS builds, TypeScript types included
• CLI-like workflow via npm run to test JSON files

✅ Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• NPM or compatible package manager

🚀 Installation

npm install json-audit-tm

In a monorepo or local dev scenario, make sure to npm run build before consuming the package.

📖 Usage (Library)

import { auditJson } from "json-audit-tm";

const result = auditJson({
  id: "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001",
  name: "Order 123",
  before: { customer: "Ana", pef: 10, items: [{ id: 1, qty: 2 }] },
  after:  { customer: "Ana Paula", pef: 15, items: [{ id: 1, qty: 3 }, { id: 2, qty: 1 }], newField: true },
  options: {
    displayNameMap: {
      "customer": "Customer Name",
      "pef": "PEF",
      "items.qty": "Quantity",
      "newField": "New Field"
    },
    ignorePaths: ["lastUpdatedAt"],
    arrayIdentity: { items: ["id"] },
    nullPolicy: "null_is_value",
    numberEpsilon: 0.001
  }
});

console.log(JSON.stringify(result, null, 2));

Example output (simplified):

{
  "id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001",
  "auditId": "AUD-1725389572000",
  "timestamp": "2025-09-03T18:52:52.000Z",
  "name": "Order 123",
  "summary": {
    "included": 1,
    "excluded": 0,
    "modified": 2,
    "type_changed": 0,
    "total": 3
  },
  "events": [
    {
      "path": "customer",
      "field": "customer",
      "displayName": "Customer Name",
      "action": "modified",
      "old": "Ana",
      "new": "Ana Paula"
    },
    {
      "path": "pef",
      "field": "pef",
      "displayName": "PEF",
      "action": "modified",
      "old": 10,
      "new": 15
    },
    {
      "path": "newField",
      "field": "newField",
      "displayName": "New Field",
      "action": "included",
      "old": null,
      "new": true
    }
  ]
}

⚙️ Advanced Options

The options property allows you to customize the diff process:

• displayNameMap → map technical keys to user-friendly names
• ignorePaths → skip some fields from audit
• arrayIdentity → define identity keys for comparing arrays
• nullPolicy → decide how null vs missing fields are treated
• numberEpsilon → tolerance for floating-point numbers
• trackReorder → track reordering of array elements

Example:

options: {
  displayNameMap: {
    "customer.name": "Customer Name",
    "items.qty": "Quantity"
  },
  ignorePaths: ["lastUpdatedAt"],
  arrayIdentity: { items: ["id"] },
  nullPolicy: "null_equals_absent",
  numberEpsilon: 0.001,
  trackReorder: true
}

🧪 Testing JSON Files (CLI Mode)

Besides using the library in code, you can test JSON files directly with npm run.

Step 1 — Generate sample files

npm run sample

This will create:

• test-file/old.json
• test-file/new.json

Step 2 — Run audit

npm run audit -- test-file/old.json test-file/new.json "order-123"

Output:
A new file inside test-file/ named like:

ab12cd34ef56.order-123.json

Inside, you will find the structured audit log.

📌 Roadmap

• [ ] Recursive deep-diff for nested objects
• [ ] Advanced array diff (identity keys, moved detection)
• [ ] Configurable null/absent behavior
• [ ] Float precision handling
• [ ] CLI binary (json-audit) published with NPM

📜 License

MIT © Thiago (TM)