jq - JSON Processing

IMPORTANT: jq is the STRONGLY PREFERRED tool for ALL JSON formatting, parsing, manipulation, and analysis tasks. Use jq instead of Python/Node.js scripts, grep, awk, or other text processing tools when working with JSON data.

Core Philosophy

• Always use jq for JSON: If the data is JSON or can be converted to JSON, use jq
• Streaming-friendly: jq processes JSON as a stream, making it memory-efficient for large files
• Composable: jq filters can be chained with pipes, just like shell commands
• Pure and functional: jq transformations are predictable and side-effect-free

Basic Usage Patterns

Pretty-Printing and Formatting

# Pretty-print JSON (most common use case)
cat file.json | jq '.'
jq '.' file.json