Skip to main content
zapier-platform-core v18 introduced a new flag named cleanInputData. This flag allows you to tell Zapier whether it should automatically remove empty values, including null, [] (empty arrays), and {} (empty objects), from bundle.inputData before passing it to your perform* functions. By default, the cleanInputData flag defaults to true, which matches the behavior of all versions prior to v18. Starting with v18, we encourage you to explicitly set this flag to false, either globally in App.flags or per trigger/action in the operation object. For example: 
const App = {
  flags: {
    cleanInputData: false,  // global flag (defaults to true if not set)
  },
  triggers: {
    recipe: {
      operation: {
        cleanInputData: false,  // per-action flag, can be omitted if same as global
      },
    },
  },
  creates: {
    recipe: {
      operation: {
        cleanInputData: true,  // only enable for this action, overrides global flag
      },
    },
  },
};

​
When cleanInputData is true

When cleanInputData is true, Zapier removes any empty values recursively from bundle.inputData before passing it to your perform* (including perform, performList, performGet, etc) functions. For example, given the following input data: 
{
  "name": "Chocolate Cake",
  "description": "",
  "tags": [null, "", "dessert"],
  "metadata": {
    "author": null,
    "ratings": {},
    "comments": []
  }
}
The resulting bundle.inputData passed to your perform function would be: 
{
  "name": "Chocolate Cake",
  "tags": ["dessert"],
}

​
When cleanInputData is false

When cleanInputData is false, Zapier preserves all empty values in bundle.inputData. Using the same example input data above, the resulting bundle.inputData would be: 
{
  "name": "Chocolate Cake",
  "description": "",
  "tags": [null, "", "dessert"],
  "metadata": {
    "author": null,
    "ratings": {},
    "comments": []
  }
}
Your perform function would then need to handle these empty values appropriately. We recommend setting cleanInputData to false and handling empty values explicitly in your code. This approach provides greater control for developers and avoids unexpected behavior, especially when dealing with nested input data (e.g., line items).
If your perform* functions didn’t previously handle empty values, setting cleanInputData to false may break your code! Make sure to test your triggers or actions before rolling out this change to users.
⌘I