In practice
Inspect unfamiliar data and extract what you need.
Inspect an unfamiliar payload, populate a dashboard selector, or extract a nested value.
- The task
- Nested messages and context objects can be difficult to inspect or turn into dashboard options.
- My contribution
- I built an explorer for msg, flow, and global context, with path selection, search modes, and configurable output formats.
- The result
- A flow can extract keys or values from an object and send diagnostics through a separate output.
Capabilities
- Explore msg, flow, or global context using dot and bracket paths.
- Collect keys, values, structured pairs, or filtered matches.
- Shape results for dashboards and route diagnostic messages through a separate output.
Install in your Node-RED user directory
npm install @omidteimoori/node-red-object-explorerRestart Node-RED after installation.
Documented configuration example · list device keys
Source: msg
Path: payload
Mode: direct_keys
Input: { "deviceA": {}, "deviceB": {} }
Result: [ "deviceA", "deviceB" ]From the project
Import a real example flow.
This configuration comes from the package’s example flow. It selects direct keys under msg.payload; the full import includes the sample input and debug nodes.
Published example · Basic Object Exploration
{
"type": "object-explorer",
"name": "Get payload keys",
"source": "msg",
"path": "payload",
"mode": "direct_keys",
"outputMode": "selected_array",
"selectionType": "key",
"includeArrays": true,
"includeValues": true
}