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jq — a lightweight command-line processor for slicing, filtering, and transforming JSON

Discovery score 293.2OSS health 85
About these scores

Discovery score is an unbounded weighted, log-compressed index of stars, watchers, forks, and contributors. Growth momentum is its change over the observed period; OSS health is a 0–100 score from available repository recency, Community Health, and release data.

Stars
35,591
Primary language
C
License
Not determined
Repository last updated
Sep 1, 2026

Overview

jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line processor that can slice, filter, map, and transform JSON data. It is written in portable C with zero runtime dependencies and brings structured-data processing to shell workflows.

Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:

Extract and transform JSON without flattening its structure

It brings sed-, awk-, and grep-like processing to JSON, including value extraction, conditional filtering, mapping arrays or objects, and structural transformation. Official documentation and an online playground help develop and inspect expressions.

Sources: [1]

For JSON APIs, command output, and configuration in shell pipelines

It fits workflows that inspect or reshape JSON returned by APIs, commands, and configuration files. The same CLI and expression language scale from selecting one value to reconstructing an object.

Sources: [1]

Understand jq expressions and the shape of each input

jq is an expression processor for JSON, not a general spreadsheet or database. Shell quoting and jq syntax must be kept separate, and expressions need to account for missing values, arrays, and objects. Prebuilt binaries and Docker are available, while source builds require additional tooling.

Sources: [1]

Official sources

  1. [1]jq README(2026-09-13)
Supplemental curator note

Selected for consolidating documentation, a playground, and an awesome list after an organization move while retaining an extremely short, noisy name.

Growth trends

Last 30 days

35,591 Stars

Trend data is still being collected.

Built with

  • C

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GitHub Topics

  • jq
GitHub dataView detailed GitHub data
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Stars
35,591
Forks
1,842
Watchers
357
Open issues
356
Contributors
228
Primary language
C
License
Not determined
Repository last updated
Sep 1, 2026
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