Dev friends: why does the JSON output of a note show the pubkey as different from my actual npub? I assume some conversion is happening there? 
Discussion
The npub-version is just a human-friendly representation of the hex-string you found in the JSON file.
i think because thats in hex https://damus.io/key/
D’uh! Thank you 🙄
It's the hex value https://nostrcheck.me/converter/