JSON is easy for machines to read but hard for humans once it is minified into one long line. Pasting it into a JSON Formatter re-indents it with consistent spacing so nested objects and arrays are easy to scan.
Most formatters also validate the JSON as they format it, so a single misplaced comma or missing quote is caught immediately with a line and column number instead of a vague parser error further down your build pipeline.
Why formatting matters
Readable JSON is easier to debug, review in a pull request, and paste into documentation. Minifying it back down before sending it over the wire keeps payloads small without losing that readability during development.
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