[FEATURE] Guard your json parse

[Lewiscowles1986]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

It looks like you are not guarding your json parse method. Although it isn't terrible or /r/badcode, it's nicer to blow up with a meaningful, non-automated error message in these cases

Describe the solution you'd like

move JSON decoding out of the main file and into a utility class for it, which has it's own exception / error types

Describe alternatives you've considered

Just let the thing blow up and trust only devs can use this

Additional context

N/A