jq

jq. Is a lightweight command-line JSON processor: the default tool for slicing, filtering, mapping, and transforming JSON in shell pipelines, CI, and ad hoc debugging.

Summary

jq (jqlang/jq) is a portable C binary with zero runtime dependencies: filter expressions, pretty-printing, arithmetic, objects/arrays, and streaming for large inputs. The project revived under the jqlang org (1.7+ after a long hiatus); current stable is 1.8.x per jqlang.org.

Use in one-liners (curl … | jq '.items[]'), policy checks (parse terraform show -json), and log wrangling. Prefer yq when you need YAML round-trips with comments preserved; prefer jq when JSON is the native format or you want the de facto query dialect.

Details

• Install: download (static binary), Homebrew (jq), apt/dnf packages; verify with jq --version.
• Docs: tutorial, manual.
• License: MIT (upstream).
• CI / ops: pipe API and tool JSON output through jq for assertions and field extraction; combine with curl, gh api, kubectl … -o json.
• Fit: Tool: CLI JSON query/processor.
• Contrast: yq for YAML-first workflows; language-native JSON APIs when a shell one-liner is not enough.