remove-ai-watermark

Sanitize images, text files, and codebases by stripping C2PA content credentials, EXIF metadata, invisible zero-width unicode watermarks, Bidi control characters, LLM prompt tokens, and steganography signals (SynthID disruption).

Built for fast batch codebase processing via CLI or Node library.

Features

• Invisible Unicode & Zero-Width Stripping: Removes hidden zero-width spaces (\u200B, \u200C, \u200D, \uFEFF, \u00AD, \u2060, \u2061-\u2064, \u200E, \u200F).
• Bidi Security Protection: Cleans Right-to-Left Override (\u202E) and invisible unicode control formatting characters.
• LLM Prompt Token Cleaning: Strips leftover system tokens (, , , , ``, etc.).
• Language-Aware Comment Sanitization: Cleans AI attribution comment headers in JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, HTML, CSS, JSON, YAML, SQL, and Markdown.
• Image Metadata & C2PA Stripping: Removes EXIF metadata, IPTC, XMP, C2PA manifest chunks, and PNG text chunks across PNG, JPEG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, and GIF formats.
• Pixel Buffer Re-Encoding: Re-encodes canvas pixel data through sharp to disrupt invisible steganographic pixel signals (SynthID).
• Visual Corner Crop: Optional --crop-corner parameter to trim off visual corner logos.
• Batch Codebase Sweeping: Recursively scans folders, respects .gitignore and .watermarkignore files, skips node_modules, and supports parallel concurrent file workers.
• CI / Pre-Commit Integration: Includes --check (CI audit exit code mode), --dry-run (preview mode), and init wizard for pre-commit hooks and GitHub Actions.

Installation

# Global installation for CLI
npm install -g remove-ai-watermark

# Local installation as dependency
npm install remove-ai-watermark

CLI Usage

Basic Batch Directory Cleaning

Overwrites cleaned files in place across an entire project directory:

npx remove-ai-watermark -i .

Cleans target directory and outputs to a destination folder preserving relative directory structure:

npx remove-ai-watermark ./src -o ./dist_clean

Preview and CI Verification

Preview changes without modifying files:

npx remove-ai-watermark --dry-run .

CI Audit mode (exits with code 1 if any AI watermarks or zero-width spaces are found):

npx remove-ai-watermark --check .

One-Click Project & CI Setup

Initialize .watermarkrc configuration and install Git pre-commit hook:

npx remove-ai-watermark init

Generate GitHub Actions workflow file (.github/workflows/verify-watermarks.yml):

npx remove-ai-watermark init --ci

CLI Options

| Flag | Description | |---|---| | -i, --in-place | Overwrite files in place | | -o, --out-dir <dir> | Output cleaned files to destination directory | | --dry-run | Preview changes without writing to disk | | --check | Audit mode (exits with code 1 if watermarks are detected) | | --crop-corner <corner> | Crop corner stamp (bottom-right, bottom-left, top-right, top-left) | | --text-only | Clean text and source code files only | | --image-only | Clean image files only | | --concurrency <N> | Set concurrent worker limit (default: 16) | | -v, --verbose | Print detailed file-by-file log | | -h, --help | Display help information |

Programmatic Library Usage

const { cleanText, cleanImage, cleanPath } = require('remove-ai-watermark');

// Clean string content
const { text, stats } = cleanText('Hello\u200BWorld');
console.log(text); // "HelloWorld"
console.log(stats.zeroWidthCount); // 1

// Clean image buffer
const { buffer, stats: imgStats } = await cleanImage(inputBuffer, {
  cropCorner: 'bottom-right'
});
console.log(imgStats.bytesSaved);

// Clean directory recursively
const summary = await cleanPath('./src', { inPlace: true });
console.log(`Cleaned ${summary.changedFiles} files`);

Configuration (.watermarkrc)

Create a .watermarkrc or .watermarkrc.json file in your repository root:

{
  "ignore": ["node_modules", ".git", "dist", "build", ".next", "vendor"],
  "textOnly": false,
  "imageOnly": false,
  "stripZeroWidth": true,
  "stripBidi": true,
  "stripTokens": true,
  "stripComments": true,
  "concurrency": 16
}

License

MIT © Aman Ghuman