ReleaseGuard

Install • Quickstart • CLI reference • Library API • Comparison • FAQ

Scan a dataset or model directory for PII and secrets with Presidio, redact what you find, and generate a public-release bundle, a Hugging Face dataset/model card plus an EU AI Act Art. 53(1)(d) training-data summary, in one command.

ReleaseGuard is not a PII detector. It's the glue between "I have a dataset I want to publish" and "I have a sanitized bundle with the paperwork already drafted." Detection is entirely Presidio's, an actively maintained open-source project with 10,000+ GitHub stars. ReleaseGuard chains Presidio's scan straight into redaction and into the two documents almost every public dataset/model release actually needs, instead of you writing a script to do it yourself.

Install

pip install releaseguard-cli
python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm   # Presidio's default NLP model (~13 MB, one-time)

# npm launcher (thin wrapper around the PyPI package, see "Why two registries" in FAQ)
npx releaseguard-cli --help

en_core_web_sm is spaCy's small English model and Presidio's own quickstart default. For higher-accuracy detection, install the larger model instead and pass --spacy-model:

python -m spacy download en_core_web_lg   # ~400 MB, Presidio's recommendation for production
releaseguard scan ./data --spacy-model en_core_web_lg

Quickstart

This is a real, unedited run against a two-row sample CSV, not a mockup:

$ releaseguard scan dataset --score-threshold 0.4
Scanned 1 file(s) under dataset
Total findings: 7

entity type                 count
URL                         3
PERSON                      2
EMAIL_ADDRESS               2

That URL: 3 line is a real Presidio quirk worth calling out rather than hiding: its regex-based URL recognizer also fires on the domain portion of an email address (example.com inside alice.rivera@example.com), so email-heavy text double-counts as both EMAIL_ADDRESS and URL. This is Presidio's own recognizer behavior, unmodified, and it's worth noting entity counts can shift slightly between Presidio/spaCy versions since detection is NLP-based, not a fixed lookup table (this run used presidio-analyzer 2.2.364 with en_core_web_sm 3.8.0). Filter it out with --entities if you only care about email addresses:

releaseguard scan dataset --entities EMAIL_ADDRESS,PERSON,PHONE_NUMBER

Redact, then package a release bundle in one command:

$ releaseguard package dataset --output bundle --score-threshold 0.4
Release bundle written to bundle
  dataset card: bundle/README-dataset-card.md
  EU AI Act Art. 53(1)(d) summary: bundle/eu-ai-act-training-summary.md
  redacted source: bundle-redacted-source

bundle/eu-ai-act-training-summary.md opens like this, real scan counts filled in, everything else left as an explicit placeholder for a human to complete:

# Training Data Summary (EU AI Act Art. 53(1)(d))

_Draft generated by ReleaseGuard... Based on the European Commission's
training-data-summary template, published 2025-07-24. This covers the
narrow, currently-binding categorical-summary requirement only -- it is
not a claim of full training-data disclosure._

## 4. Personal Data and PII Handling (from ReleaseGuard scan)

A Presidio-backed scan (detector: `presidio`) covered 1 file(s) under `dataset`.

| PII/secret category detected | Occurrences |
| --- | --- |
| `EMAIL_ADDRESS` | 2 |
| `PERSON` | 2 |
| `URL` | 3 |

--json on every command switches to machine-readable output for scripts and agents.

Quick summary

• Use it for: turning a Presidio scan into a redacted copy plus a dataset/model card and an EU AI Act Art. 53(1)(d) training-data summary, from one command instead of three separate tools and a hand-written template
• What it's not: a PII detector of its own, or a claim of "total transparency"/full training-data disclosure compliance. See What ReleaseGuard is not
• Runs entirely local. No dataset content, scan results, or redacted output is ever sent to a remote service.

CLI reference

$ releaseguard --help
Usage: releaseguard [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Scan, redact, and package a dataset/model directory for public release.

  ReleaseGuard is a packaging layer on top of Presidio (originally a Microsoft
  project, now maintained by data-privacy-stack) -- it does not detect PII
  independently of Presidio. See the README's "What ReleaseGuard is not"
  section.

Options:
  --version  Show the version and exit.
  --help     Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  mcp      Start an MCP server exposing scan/redact/package as agent tools.
  package  Scan PATH, optionally redact it, and generate a release bundle...
  redact   Scan PATH and write a redacted copy to --output.
  scan     Scan PATH (a file or directory) for PII and secrets using...

Every command supports --json. Full flag reference: releaseguard <command> --help.

Library API

from releaseguard.detectors import get_detector
from releaseguard.scanner import scan_directory
from releaseguard.redactor import redact_directory
from releaseguard.packager import build_release_bundle
from releaseguard.types import RedactionStrategy

detector = get_detector("presidio", score_threshold=0.4)
scan_result = scan_directory("dataset/", detector)

redaction_result = redact_directory(
    scan_result, "dataset-redacted/", strategy=RedactionStrategy.MASK
)

bundle = build_release_bundle(
    scan_result, "bundle/", redaction_result=redaction_result, source_kind="dataset"
)
print(bundle.eu_ai_act_summary_path)

PIIDetector (releaseguard.detectors.base) and FileReader (releaseguard.readers.base) are the two extension points. Presidio is currently the only detector shipped; CSV, JSON/JSONL, and plain text are currently the three readers shipped. Both are registries, not hardcoded calls, specifically so a new format or a second detection backend is a scoped addition later. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

MCP Server

ReleaseGuard ships a Model Context Protocol server so an AI agent (Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client) can scan, redact, and package a dataset or model directory directly, without a human invoking the CLI by hand.

Install the extra:

pip install "releaseguard-cli[mcp]"

Start it directly with the mcp subcommand:

releaseguard mcp

Add it to your MCP client's config (for Claude Desktop, claude_desktop_config.json). The server is started via a subcommand of the published releaseguard console script, not a separate console script of its own:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "releaseguard": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "releaseguard-cli", "releaseguard", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Transport is stdio, so there is nothing to host: the MCP client spawns the server as a local subprocess. Source: src/releaseguard/mcp_server.py.

The server exposes three tools, each returning the same JSON shape as the matching CLI --json output:

Read the full README on GitHub →