jq CLI Recipes

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Real-world jq commands for APIs, cloud tooling, DevOps output, reporting, logs, and shell scripting.

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cURL and API Recipes

Use jq with HTTP APIs and JSON responses.

Pretty-print JSON API response

Format a JSON HTTP response from curl.

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bashANYjqcurlapi

bash

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/jqlang/jq | jq '.'

A foundational pattern for API inspection.

Extract one field from API response

Print a single field like a repo name or count.

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bashANYjqcurlextract

bash

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/jqlang/jq | jq -r '.full_name'

Use `-r` for plain shell-friendly output.

List names from API array

Extract one field from each array item in an API response.

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bashANYjqcurlarrays

bash

curl -s https://api.github.com/orgs/github/repos?per_page=5 | jq -r '.[].full_name'

Very common for quick reporting from API arrays.

Convert API results to CSV

Build CSV rows from JSON array objects.

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bashANYjqcurlcsv

bash

curl -s https://api.github.com/orgs/github/repos?per_page=5 | jq -r '.[] | [.name, .stargazers_count] | @csv'

Excellent for spreadsheet exports and ad hoc reports.

Filter repos by language

Return only items matching a specific field value.

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bashANYjqcurlfiltering

bash

curl -s https://api.github.com/orgs/github/repos?per_page=20 | jq '.[] | select(.language == "Go") | {name, language}'

A good example of combining `select()` with object projection.

AWS, kubectl, and Docker

Use jq with common DevOps tools that emit JSON.

Get EC2 instance IDs

Extract instance IDs from AWS CLI JSON output.

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bashANYjqawsec2

bash

aws ec2 describe-instances | jq -r '.Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId'

This pattern appears constantly in shell automation.

Filter running EC2 instances

List only instances in the running state.

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bashANYjqawsfiltering

bash

aws ec2 describe-instances | jq '.Reservations[].Instances[] | select(.State.Name == "running") | {id: .InstanceId, type: .InstanceType}'

Great for lightweight audits without crafting a JMESPath query.

List Kubernetes pod names

Extract pod names from kubectl JSON output.

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bashANYjqkubectlpods

bash

kubectl get pods -o json | jq -r '.items[].metadata.name'

Perfect for loops and quick visibility.

Filter running pods

Show only pods in Running phase.

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bashANYjqkubectlfiltering

bash

kubectl get pods -o json | jq '.items[] | select(.status.phase == "Running") | .metadata.name'

Useful for triage and operational scripts.

Get Docker container IP

Extract container IP from `docker inspect`.

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bashANYjqdockerinspect

bash

docker inspect my-container | jq -r '.[0].NetworkSettings.IPAddress'

A classic jq + Docker recipe.

List Terraform state resources

Extract resource addresses from Terraform state JSON.

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bashANYjqterraformstate

bash

terraform show -json | jq -r '.values.root_module.resources[].address'

Excellent for inventorying state contents.

Logs and Reporting

Analyze logs and create shell-friendly reports.

Extract log levels

Read a field from each JSON log line.

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bashANYjqlogsjson-lines

bash

cat app.log | jq -r '.level'

Works when each log line is a JSON object.

Filter error logs

Return only error-level JSON log lines.

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bashANYjqlogsfiltering

bash

cat app.log | jq 'select(.level == "error")'

Simple and effective for local debugging.

Count logs by level

Aggregate log frequency by level.

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bashANYjqlogsaggregation

bash

cat app.log | jq -s 'group_by(.level) | map({level: .[0].level, count: length})'

Useful for operational summaries and postmortems.

Turn JSON logs into TSV

Extract selected fields into tab-separated text.

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bashANYjqlogstsv

bash

cat app.log | jq -r '[.timestamp, .level, .message] | @tsv'

Great for quick grep-friendly tabular output.

Build Markdown table rows

Create Markdown-friendly rows from JSON data.

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bashANYjqmarkdownreporting

bash

echo '[{"name":"alice","score":90},{"name":"bob","score":85}]' | jq -r '.[] | "| (.name) | (.score) |"'

Handy for docs, PR comments, and status reports.

Convert env vars into JSON object

Build JSON from shell variables.

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bashANYjqshellenv

bash

APP_NAME=cheatsheet ENV=prod jq -n --arg app "$APP_NAME" --arg env "$ENV" '{app: $app, env: $env}'

A strong pattern for shell scripting and automation.

Arguments and Shell Integration

Pass values from the shell safely into jq.

Pass string variable

Inject a shell string into a jq program.

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bashANYjqargsshell

bash

name=alice; jq -n --arg name "$name" '{name: $name}'

Use `--arg` for shell strings.

Pass JSON value

Inject a JSON literal like a number, array, or object.

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bashANYjqargsjson

bash

count=42; jq -n --argjson count "$count" '{count: $count}'

Use `--argjson` when the value should remain JSON, not a string.

Read another JSON file into variable

Load a JSON file into jq as an array of documents.

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bashANYjqslurpfilefiles

bash

jq --slurpfile cfg config.json '.items[] | {name, config: $cfg[0]}' data.json

Useful for joins between documents or config-driven transforms.

Read one JSON file into variable

Load one JSON document into a jq variable.

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bashANYjqargfilefiles

bash

jq --argfile cfg config.json '{config: $cfg, data: .}' data.json

Use when you need a single parsed JSON document as context.

Use jq exit status

Set shell exit code based on jq result.

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bashANYjqexit-statusshell

bash

echo '{"healthy":true}' | jq -e '.healthy' > /dev/null

`-e` is excellent for shell conditions and CI checks.

More in jq

jq Filters and Transformations

Advanced jq patterns for regex, booleans, dates, math, recursive descent, filtering, and output shaping.

jq Arrays and Objects

Deep reference for jq arrays, objects, grouping, entries, path updates, reshaping, and structural manipulation.

jq Cheat Sheet

Core jq syntax, filters, selectors, arrays, objects, variables, sorting, grouping, formatting, and shell-friendly usage.

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