jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor akin to sed,awk,grep, and friends for JSON data. It's written in portable C and has zero runtime dependencies, allowing you to easily slice, filter, map, and transform structured data.

• Official Documentation: jqlang.org
• Try jq Online: play.jqlang.org

Download the latest releases from the GitHub release page.

Pull the jq image to start quickly with Docker.

docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/jqlang/jq:latest < package.json '.version'

docker run --rm -i -v "$PWD:$PWD" -w "$PWD" ghcr.io/jqlang/jq:latest '.version' package.json

• libtool
• make
• automake
• autoconf

git submodule update --init    # if building from git to get oniguruma
autoreconf -i                  # if building from git
./configure --with-oniguruma=builtin
make clean                     # if upgrading from a version previously built from source
make -j8
make check
sudo make install

Build a statically linked version:

make LDFLAGS=-all-static

If you're not using the latest git version but instead building a released tarball (available on the release page), skip the autoreconf step, and flex or bison won't be needed.

A CMake build is also provided as an alternative to autoconf/automake. It mirrors the same feature checks and produces the same jq executable, libjq (shared and static) and libjq.pc outputs.

git submodule update --init    # if building from git to get oniguruma
cmake -S . -B build -DJQ_BUILD_ONIGURUMA=builtin
cmake --build build -j
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure
sudo cmake --install build

Useful options (pass with -D<name>=<value>):

• JQ_BUILD_ONIGURUMA — auto (default), system, builtin, or off
• JQ_ENABLE_DECNUM — enable decNumber support (default ON)
• JQ_ENABLE_ALL_STATIC — link jq fully statically (default OFF)
• JQ_ENABLE_ASAN / JQ_ENABLE_UBSAN / JQ_ENABLE_GCOV — sanitizers and coverage
• JQ_BUILD_SHARED_LIB / JQ_BUILD_STATIC_LIB — choose which libjq flavors to build
• JQ_BUILD_TESTS — register the test suite with CTest (default ON)

For details on cross-compilation, check out the GitHub Actions file and the cross-compilation wiki page.

• Questions & Help: Stack Overflow (jq tag)
• Chat & Community: Join us on Discord
• Wiki & Advanced Topics: Explore the Wiki

jq is released under the MIT License. jq's documentation is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. jq uses parts of the open source C library "decNumber", which is distributed under ICU License