jq CLI Recipes

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

# Format a JSON HTTP response from curl.

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

# Print a single field like a repo name or count.

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

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

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

# Build CSV rows from JSON array objects.

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

# Return only items matching a specific field value.

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

# Extract instance IDs from AWS CLI JSON output.

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

# List only instances in the running state.

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

# Extract pod names from kubectl JSON output.

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

# Show only pods in Running phase.

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

# Extract container IP from `docker inspect`.

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

# Extract resource addresses from Terraform state JSON.

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

# Read a field from each JSON log line.

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

# Return only error-level JSON log lines.

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

# Aggregate log frequency by level.

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

# Extract selected fields into tab-separated text.

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

# Create Markdown-friendly rows from JSON data.

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

# Build JSON from shell variables.

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

# Inject a shell string into a jq program.

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

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

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

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

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

# Load one JSON document into a jq variable.

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

# Set shell exit code based on jq result.