diff --git a/letsencrypt/client/acme.py b/letsencrypt/client/acme.py
index 3a419c8f1..306ee9171 100755
--- a/letsencrypt/client/acme.py
+++ b/letsencrypt/client/acme.py
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ schemata = {schema: json.load(open("letsencrypt/client/schemata/%s.json" % schem
 }
 
 def acme_object_validate(j):
+    """Validate a JSON object against the ACME protocol using JSON Schema.
+    Success will return None; failure to validate will raise a
+    jsonschema.ValidationError exception describing the reason that the
+    object could not be validated successfully."""
     j = json.loads(j)
     if not isinstance(j, dict):
         raise jsonschema.ValidationError("this is not a dictionary object")
@@ -21,3 +25,7 @@ def acme_object_validate(j):
         raise jsonschema.ValidationError("unknown type %s" % j["type"])
     jsonschema.validate(j, schemata[j["type"]])
 
+def pretty(s):
+    """Return a pretty-printed version of any JSON string (useful when
+    printing out protocol messages for debugging purposes."""
+    return json.dumps(json.loads(s), indent=4)