Install jq with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• jq

Project history

jq was created by Stephen Dolan and grew into a standalone query language with filters, pipes, generators, functions, modules, streaming input, and a C library. Its zero-runtime-dependency binary made it easy to distribute in scripts, containers, CI jobs, and production debugging environments.

The public release line was already established by jq 1.3 in May 2013 and jq 1.4 in June 2014. jq 1.5 in August 2015 added substantial language features including datetime, math, regular-expression functions, try/catch syntax, destructuring, a streaming parser, and a module system. jq 1.6 followed in November 2018.

After a five-year gap, jq governance moved into the jqlang GitHub organization. The 1.7 release in September 2023 credited the new organization, new maintainers and admins, Stephen Dolan's repository transfer, updated CI and release infrastructure, broader platform binaries, Docker images from GitHub Container Registry, and OSS-Fuzz integration.

Adoption history

jq became a default tool for API users, shell programmers, SREs, CI maintainers, and package authors because JSON became the lingua franca of web APIs and cloud CLIs. It is packaged across Homebrew, Linux distributions, MacPorts, Nix, Chocolatey, Scoop, winget, and other ecosystems, and its filters are routinely embedded in documentation and automation snippets.

How it is used

Common usage ranges from pretty-printing and extracting fields to reshaping API responses, validating shell pipeline output, transforming config data, and writing reusable jq modules. Its single-binary distribution model also makes it popular in containers and remote machines where installing a language runtime would be heavier.

Why package nerds care

jq is one of the defining package-manager CLIs of the JSON era. Package nerds care about it because it is both a tiny executable and a language ecosystem: build systems depend on it, tests shell out to it, release pipelines parse with it, and downstream tools such as gojq, jaq, fq, jq-lsp, playgrounds, and editor integrations orbit its syntax and behavior.

Timeline

• 2013-05-19: jq 1.3 was released.
• 2014-06-09: jq 1.4 was released.
• 2015-08-15: jq 1.5 was released with major language and parser features.
• 2018-11-01: jq 1.6 was released.
• 2023-09-07: jq 1.7 was released after a five-year hiatus under the jqlang organization.
• 2023-12-13: jq 1.7.1 was released with security and bug fixes.
• 2025-06-01: jq 1.8.0 was released.
• 2026-06-20: jq 1.8.2 was released with security fixes, bug fixes, and additional builds.

Related projects

• Related projects include gojq, jaq, fq, jq-lsp, vscode-jq, jqlang/awesome-jq, play.jqlang.org, and package-manager formulas that distribute jq as a ubiquitous scripting dependency.

Sources

• https://github.com/jqlang
• https://github.com/jqlang/awesome-jq
• https://github.com/jqlang/jq
• https://jqlang.org/
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jqlang/jq/master/NEWS.md