# JSON always converting to String in Debugger input

**URL:** <https://community.mindstudio.ai/t/json-always-converting-to-string-in-debugger-input/1807>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [November 4, 2025, 11:04pm UTC](https://community.mindstudio.ai/t/json-always-converting-to-string-in-debugger-input/1807 "2025-11-04T23:04:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![StilMan25](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex008/user_avatar/community.mindstudio.ai/stilman25/32/672_2.png) [@StilMan25](https://community.mindstudio.ai/u/StilMan25)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 11:04pm UTC](https://community.mindstudio.ai/t/json-always-converting-to-string-in-debugger-input/1807/1 "2025-11-04T23:04:07Z")

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I’m pasting valid JSON, as far as I can tell, into the data field when creating a launch variable in debugger mode. Every time I click out of the field, it automatically puts quotes around this.

Please see the video here to see it live in action. I would really like to know how to fix this.

https://www.loom.com/embed/adbc998442c846f7b3d0b8ac2c6bad71

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**Author:** ![Alex\_MindStudio](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex008/user_avatar/community.mindstudio.ai/alex_mindstudio/32/27_2.png) [@Alex\_MindStudio](https://community.mindstudio.ai/u/Alex_MindStudio)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 12:08pm UTC](https://community.mindstudio.ai/t/json-always-converting-to-string-in-debugger-input/1807/2 "2025-11-05T12:08:45Z")

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Hi @StilMan25,

Thanks for the Loom!

That’s the default behavior of launch variables in the Debugger. If you’re passing the data to a Custom Function, make sure the function parses it and converts it into a valid JSON array.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![StilMan25](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex008/user_avatar/community.mindstudio.ai/stilman25/32/672_2.png) [@StilMan25](https://community.mindstudio.ai/u/StilMan25)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://community.mindstudio.ai/t/json-always-converting-to-string-in-debugger-input/1807/3 "2025-11-05T21:23:06Z")

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That helps a lot Alex… I will give it a try and let you know.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![StilMan25](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex008/user_avatar/community.mindstudio.ai/stilman25/32/672_2.png) [@StilMan25](https://community.mindstudio.ai/u/StilMan25)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2025, 7:59pm UTC](https://community.mindstudio.ai/t/json-always-converting-to-string-in-debugger-input/1807/4 "2025-11-07T19:59:32Z")

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Alex, I’ve created a parsing action in my custom function which is designed to and tried passing the JSON in the debugger both with a stringified properly formatted JSON object and a single line version of the JSON object.

This was fraught with problems, so I have taken a different approach and now created a caller workflow before it comes into my API handler workflow and using the caller workflow to create a proper JSON object.

I removed my block which was using a custom function to properly set the launch variable, and all of that is now working very well.

I do believe there was an opportunity to significantly improve the debugger input screen for launch variables to accept proper JSON objects.