jq

MIT command-line JSON processor — the ubiquitous pipe filter

DevOps / Tooling · OSS/MIT · 35.9k

Reviewed 2026-09-09 · last push 2026-10-16 · repo checked 2026-10-19

What's Good

MIT. Lightweight C binary, available everywhere. Expressive filter language for slicing, transforming, and querying JSON streams. Essential for parsing API responses, log files, and config in shell scripts. Composes with curl, ripgrep, and every CLI that emits JSON. The lingua franca of JSON pipelines.

The Catch

Vs yq (YAML/JSON/XML), fx (interactive), and jless (TUI viewer): jq is the *filter language*, not a viewer and not YAML-native. Syntax is its own DSL — steep initial learning curve for complex transforms. Error messages can be cryptic. No schema validation or type safety.

Verdict

MIT JSON filter. Free forever; the one CLI that belongs in every shell script touching JSON.

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