jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor. If you are a command line addict, you will like the official description. jq is like sed for JSON data – you can use it to slice and filter and map and transform structured data with the same ease that sed, awk, grep and friends let you play with text.

What is jq command used for?

jq is a Linux command line utility that is easily used to extract data from JSON documents.

What is jq written in?

jq is written in portable C, and it has zero runtime dependencies. You can download a single binary, scp it to a far away machine of the same type, and expect it to work.