# How redaction works

Canonical: https://fairleadhq.com/docs/recorder/redaction-rules/

Updated: 2026-10-10
Publication state: published
Product version: Recorder source f6ed5b96

Agent summary: Understand automatic sanitization and the content that still needs review. Headers may be partially revealed; screenshots and console and notes need manual inspection.

## Prerequisites

- A recording or capture configuration to review

## Inputs

- Sensitive keys and captured content

## Outputs

- An understanding of sanitization coverage and gaps

## Limitations

- Headers may be partially revealed; screenshots and console and notes need manual inspection

## Permissions

- Project configuration access only when changing project rules

## Privacy

- Review content and destination before sharing


Understand automatic sanitization and the content that still needs review.

Recorder applies sensitive-value rules during capture and report assembly. Review the actual evidence before sharing because different content types have different protections.

## Sensitive keys and values

Password, passwd, and secret key matching is always applied. Account-free recordings also use baseline authorization, cookie, API-key, token, and session-key rules.

Connected projects supply their own sensitive-key and pattern lists. Those lists replace the local baseline; they do not automatically extend it. If the project omits `authorization` or `cookie` and no matching pattern covers them, those raw headers remain unmasked in stored reports and exports. Ask your administrator to include the keys your application uses.

Sensitive DOM inputs are marked for redaction, but original input values, network headers, and bodies can remain in local memory and the session-recovery snapshot. Untrusted iframe input-value capture is restricted. A masked display does not prove that an original was never captured.

Privacy review can mask supported fields. When revealing originals is permitted, preserving a field can include its original value in reviewed reports and exports. Account-free sessions permit this; connected sessions use the project policy captured when recording starts. Review those choices before downloading or sending evidence.

## Structured network content

Sanitization supports URL query parameters and JSON, URL-encoded, and multipart body paths. Matched headers can be partially revealed rather than entirely blanked.

Cookie values are masked in the initial reviewed projection. Supported privacy decisions can change the export when the session policy permits originals. Cookie fields and raw Cookie/Set-Cookie headers are related but distinct representations; inspect both after a change.

JSON that cannot be parsed is returned unchanged, including JSON cut off by a capture size limit. XML/SOAP and arbitrary free text have no universal redaction guarantee. Inspect their contents directly.

## Images and authored text

Console messages, screenshots, and notes require human inspection. Screenshot pixels are not automatically obscured. Notes are saved as written, so do not put secrets into an annotation.

Small clicked-image thumbnails can be stored with action evidence when an image-only control has no useful text. They remain in the export and have no removal decision in Privacy preview. Inspect the related action and repeat the recording with safe content when needed.

`session.md` and `notes.md` preserve your authored text. Captured evidence context follows the export review decisions; inspect both the context and what you wrote. Console text has supported manual redaction controls but no universal automatic secret matching.

## Check the rules used by your recording

[Understand capture rules](https://fairleadhq.com/docs/recorder/capture-configuration/) explains why page scope, trusted frames, and payload limits affect evidence. Ask your administrator about a project rule that causes a gap. New settings apply to a new recording; they cannot repair copies already shared.

The viewer does not provide arbitrary payload editing or pixel masking. Follow [Review data before sharing](https://fairleadhq.com/docs/recorder/review-redaction/) if a recording contains material you cannot send.