CLI

phileas includes a command-line interface (CLI) that lets you redact sensitive information from text directly from your terminal — no Python code required.

Installation

The CLI is installed automatically with the phileas package:

pip install phileas-redact

After installation, the phileas command is available in your shell.

Usage

phileas -p POLICY_FILE -c CONTEXT (-t TEXT | -f FILE) [options]

Required arguments

Argument	Short	Description
--policy FILE	-p	Path to a policy file (JSON or YAML).
--context CONTEXT	-c	Context name used for referential integrity across documents.
--text TEXT	-t	Text to redact, supplied directly as a string. Mutually exclusive with --file.
--file FILE	-f	Path to a file whose contents should be redacted. Mutually exclusive with --text.

Optional arguments

Argument	Short	Description
--document-id ID	-d	Document identifier. Auto-generated if omitted.
--output FILE	-o	Write the redacted text to FILE instead of stdout.
--spans		Print span metadata as JSON to stderr after filtering.
--evaluate FILE		Path to a JSON file containing ground-truth spans. Prints evaluation metrics (precision, recall, F1) to stdout.

Policy files

The --policy argument accepts a path to a JSON or YAML policy file. The file must conform to the phileas policy schema.

JSON policy file example

{
  "name": "my-policy",
  "identifiers": {
    "emailAddress": {
      "emailAddressFilterStrategies": [
        {"strategy": "REDACT", "redactionFormat": "{{{REDACTED-%t}}}"}
      ]
    },
    "ssn": {
      "ssnFilterStrategies": [
        {"strategy": "REDACT", "redactionFormat": "{{{REDACTED-%t}}}"}
      ]
    }
  }
}

YAML policy file example

name: my-policy
identifiers:
  emailAddress:
    emailAddressFilterStrategies:
      - strategy: REDACT
        redactionFormat: "{{{REDACTED-%t}}}"
  ssn:
    ssnFilterStrategies:
      - strategy: REDACT
        redactionFormat: "{{{REDACTED-%t}}}"

Examples

Redact a text string

phileas -p policy.yaml -c my-context -t "Contact john@example.com or call 800-555-1234."

Output:

Contact {{{REDACTED-email-address}}} or call {{{REDACTED-phone-number}}}.

Redact the contents of a file

phileas -p policy.yaml -c my-context -f report.txt

The redacted text is written to stdout.

Write redacted output to a file

phileas -p policy.yaml -c my-context -f report.txt -o report_redacted.txt

Use a YAML policy file

phileas -p policy.yaml -c my-context -t "Patient SSN is 123-45-6789."

Supply a custom document ID

phileas -p policy.yaml -c my-context -d doc-001 -t "Email: admin@example.com"

View span metadata

Use --spans to print details about each detected piece of sensitive information as JSON on stderr:

phileas -p policy.yaml -c my-context -t "Email john@example.com." --spans

Stdout:

Email {{{REDACTED-email-address}}}.

Stderr:

[
  {
    "characterStart": 6,
    "characterEnd": 22,
    "filterType": "email-address",
    "text": "john@example.com",
    "replacement": "{{{REDACTED-email-address}}}",
    "confidence": 1.0,
    "ignored": false,
    "context": "my-context"
  }
]

Pipe text from another command

Pass a file to phileas with the --file flag:

phileas -p policy.yaml -c pipeline -f report.txt

Evaluate against ground-truth annotations

Use --evaluate to compare the filter's output against a JSON file of ground-truth spans. Evaluation metrics are printed to stdout after the redacted text.

phileas -p policy.json -c my-context -t "Email john@example.com." --evaluate ground_truth.json

The ground-truth JSON file must be either a JSON array of span objects or a JSON object with a "spans" key. Each span must have "start" and "end" character positions, and an optional "type" field:

[
  {"start": 6, "end": 22, "type": "email-address"}
]

Or using the object format:

{
  "text": "Email john@example.com.",
  "spans": [
    {"start": 6, "end": 22, "type": "email-address"}
  ]
}

Stdout (redacted text followed by metrics):

Email {{{REDACTED-email-address}}}.
{
  "truePositives": 1,
  "falsePositives": 0,
  "falseNegatives": 0,
  "precision": 1.0,
  "recall": 1.0,
  "f1": 1.0
}