fix: stringify strings to avoid being cast to numbers

[danielroe]

🔗 Linked issue

❓ Type of change

• [ ] 📖 Documentation (updates to the documentation, readme, or JSdoc annotations)
• [x] 🐞 Bug fix (a non-breaking change that fixes an issue)
• [ ] 👌 Enhancement (improving an existing functionality like performance)
• [ ] ✨ New feature (a non-breaking change that adds functionality)
• [ ] 🧹 Chore (updates to the build process or auxiliary tools and libraries)
• [ ] ⚠️ Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)

📚 Description

This ensures we stringify strings to avoid them being cast back to numbers when they are read (e.g. 021324)

📝 Checklist

• [ ] I have linked an issue or discussion.
• [ ] I have updated the documentation accordingly.