Modes, mutation, and cloning

Use this skill when

• You are choosing between clone mode and mutation mode.
• You are deciding whether to enable codegen: true.
• You need to understand replacement strategies (remove, mask, tokenize, hash).
• You need to handle circular references, Map, Set, errors, or class instances.
• You are integrating Redactive and need to understand what gets preserved and what changes.

Clone mode vs mutation mode

Clone mode (default)

const redact = createRedactor({ paths: ['password'] });
const output = redact(input);
// output !== input — input is unchanged