Philter SDK for Java

The Philter SDK for Java is an API client for Philter. Philter identifies and manipulates sensitive information such as Protected Health Information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII) in natural language text. Philter is built upon the open source PII/PHI detection engine Phileas.

Refer to the Philter API specification for details on the available endpoints.

Installation

Releases are available from Maven Central. Add the dependency to your Maven configuration:

<dependency>
    <groupId>ai.philterd</groupId>
    <artifactId>philter-sdk-java</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Compatibility

As of version 2.0.0, this client targets the Philter 4.0.0 API. Earlier versions of the client are not compatible with Philter 4.0.0 and later.

philter-sdk-java	Philter API
2.0.0 and later	4.0.0
1.x	1.x – 3.x

Example Usage

See the Developer Guide for a full, example-driven walkthrough of redacting text and documents, managing policies, and the rest of the API.

With an available running instance of Philter, to filter text:

PhilterClient client = new PhilterClient.PhilterClientBuilder()
        .withEndpoint("https://127.0.0.1:8080")
        .withApiKey("your-api-key")
        .build();

FilterResponse filterResponse = client.filter("context", "default", text);

To filter text with explanation:

ExplainResponse explainResponse = client.explain("context", "default", text);

Philter 4.0.0 expects an Authorization header on nearly every endpoint. Provide its value with withApiKey(...); the value is sent verbatim, so include any scheme prefix (for example "Bearer ") if your deployment requires it. The health() endpoint does not require authentication.

In addition to filtering, the client covers the full Philter 4.0.0 API: policies (including versions, diffs, and rollbacks), contexts, documents, legal holds, the redaction ledger, custom lists, redact lists, and re-identification.

Testing

Unit tests run against a mocked HTTP server and execute on every build with no external dependencies.

Live integration tests (PhilterClientTest) run against a real Philter instance and are skipped unless PHILTER_ENDPOINT is set. To run them:

export PHILTER_ENDPOINT=https://localhost:8080/
export PHILTER_API_KEY=your-api-key   # optional
export PHILTER_INSECURE=true          # optional, to trust self-signed certificates
mvn test

Additional optional variable: PHILTER_PDF_FILE (to enable the PDF filtering test).

Release History

See RELEASE_NOTES.md for the release history.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0.

Copyright 2026 Philterd, LLC. Philter is a registered trademark of Philterd, LLC.