Doc Cleanup

Clean up noisy document content using configurable regex replace rules. Useful for normalizing timestamps, IDs, or other dynamic values before comparing files.

Features

Clean Documents

Run Doc Cleanup: Clean Active Document from the Command Palette. If you have multiple rule groups, you'll be prompted to pick which group to apply (or apply all at once).

Rule Groups

Organize rules into named groups (e.g. "JSON Files", "Logs", "Markdown") and apply them independently. Each group contains its own set of regex replace rules.

Visual Rule Configuration

Run Doc Cleanup: Configure Rules to open a tabbed UI for managing rule groups:

• Create, rename, and delete groups
• Add, edit, and delete rules per group

Import/Export

• Import: Load rule groups from a JSON file
• Export: Save current rule groups to a JSON file for backup or sharing

Commands

Settings

Rule Group Structure

Each group in docCleanup.ruleGroups has:

• name (required): Name of the group
• rules (required): Array of rules, each with:
  • pattern (required): Regex pattern string (without leading/trailing slashes)
  • replacement (required): Replacement string
  • description (optional): Short note about what the rule does
  • flags (optional): Regex flags (g is added automatically)

Replacement Tokens

Replacement strings support standard regex substitution tokens:

| Token | Description | | --------- | ------------------------- | | $1–$9 | Captured group references | | $& | The entire matched text | | $`` | Text before the match | | $' | Text after the match | |$$ | Literal$` character |

Example Rules

Settings JSON

"docCleanup.ruleGroups": [
  {
    "name": "JSON Normalization",
    "rules": [
      {
        "description": "Normalize timestamps",
        "pattern": "\"timestamp\":\\s*\"[^\"]+\"",
        "replacement": "\"timestamp\": \"<TIMESTAMP>\""
      },
      {
        "description": "Normalize UUIDs",
        "pattern": "\"id\":\\s*\"[0-9a-fA-F-]{36}\"",
        "replacement": "\"id\": \"<UUID>\"",
        "flags": "i"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "name": "Log Cleanup",
    "rules": [
      {
        "description": "Remove line numbers",
        "pattern": "^\\d+:\\s*",
        "replacement": "",
        "flags": "gm"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Using Capture Groups

Swap key-value pairs:

{
  "description": "Swap key=value to value=key",
  "pattern": "(\\w+)=(\\w+)",
  "replacement": "$2=$1"
}

Import/Export Format

Exported files use this format:

{
  "ruleGroups": [
    {
      "name": "Group Name",
      "rules": [
        {
          "description": "Rule 1",
          "pattern": "...",
          "replacement": "..."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Import also supports legacy formats: a flat array of rules, or an object with a rules property.

Notes

• Rules run in order; each rule applies to the output of the previous one
• Invalid rules are skipped and reported in the Doc Cleanup output channel
• The g (global) flag is added automatically to all patterns

Development

npm run compile    # Build
npm test           # Run tests
npm run test:watch # Run tests in watch mode
npm run package    # Build and package .vsix