Why I Built Captain JSON: A JSON Toolkit for Developers

Nishant Gohel — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:31:01 +0000

If you work with APIs, automation, or backend systems, you probably spend a ridiculous amount of time staring at JSON.

Pretty-printing it.
Validating it.
Comparing two responses.
Finding a JSONPath.
Converting it to another format.
Decoding JWTs.
Fixing that one missing comma. 😅

And somehow, we keep opening five different browser tools to do these simple tasks.

I faced the same problem every day as an automation engineer.

So I decided to build something I actually wanted to use.

Meet Captain JSON 🏴‍☠️

Captain JSON is a Chrome extension built for developers, testers, and anyone who works with JSON.

The goal is simple:

One place for the everyday JSON problems developers face.

Some of the features include:

🔍 JSON Viewer & Pretty Printer
⚖️ JSON Compare
✅ JSON Validator
🧭 JSONPath Generator
🌳 Tree View
🔄 JSON ↔ XML / YAML / CSV / Properties
🔐 JWT Decoder
🛠️ JSON Auto Repair
📊 JSON → Table
📝 JSONL Workbench
🔎 JQ support
🚀 Support for large JSON files

But this isn't just another developer tool I built and published.

It's the beginning of something bigger.

From Tester to Builder

I've spent years working with automation, APIs, CI/CD, cloud services and large test systems.

Eventually I started asking myself:

What if we built the tools that testers and developers actually need?

That question led to Pirates of Bugs.

We're building a collection of developer and testing tools designed around real problems we encounter while working with software.

Captain JSON is the first one we're pushing seriously.

Why Chrome Extension?

Because developers already live in their browser.

When an API response opens with thousands of lines of JSON, the last thing I want to do is:

Copy → open another website → paste → format → copy again.

I wanted the workflow to be closer to:

Open → Inspect → Fix → Continue working.

That's the experience I'm trying to build.

I'm Building This in Public

Captain JSON is still evolving.

I'm learning everything beyond engineering too:

Product development
UX
Chrome Web Store optimization
SEO
Marketing
Community building
Distribution
And, apparently, how difficult it is to get people to install something you've spent months building. 😅

The interesting part is that building the product was only half the challenge.

Getting it into the hands of developers is the other half.

So I'm going to experiment with different approaches and share what I learn along the way.

If you're a developer, tester, API engineer, or someone who works with JSON regularly, I'd love to hear from you.

What JSON-related problem wastes the most time in your daily workflow?

Maybe that becomes the next feature Captain JSON builds.

🏴‍☠️ Hunt Bugs. Find Treasure.

— Nishant
Pirates of Bugs

DEV Community: Nishant Gohel

Why I Built Captain JSON: A JSON Toolkit for Developers