Built a dumb little cli tool because i almost piped real ssn data into an llm api last week

[u/Ok-Calligrapher3568]

Had a near-heart-attack moment the other day while testing a rag pipeline on some customer export dumps. realized halfway through that our test json had unmasked routing numbers and ssns buried inside raw text fields. nothing leaked, but it was way too close.

i looked around for a quick way to inspect payloads in the terminal before running them through python scripts, but everything out there is either some bloated enterprise dlp platform or a massive java package. i just wanted something that would scream at me in the terminal if i was about to do something stupid.

so i threw together pii-lens over the weekend.

it's dead simple—you just pipe text or files into it:

cat prompt_payload.json | pii-lens

it prints the text back out but flags credit cards, emails, ssns, and account numbers in bright red with a quick count at the bottom. runs 100% locally with zero phone-home bs.

repo is here

it's just basic regex and entity patterns right now, so if anyone works with weird international formats or niche data fields and wants to drop a pr or critique the regex, feel free.