yq

yq A lightweight and portable command-line YAML, JSON, INI and XML processor. yq uses jq (a popular JSON processor) like syntax but works with yaml files as well as json, kyaml, xml, ini, properties, csv and tsv. It doesn't yet support everything jq does - but it does support the most common operations and functions, and more is being added continuously. yq is written in Go - so you can download a dependency free binary for your platform and you are good to go! If you prefer there are a variety of package managers that can be used as well as Docker and Podman, all listed below. Quick Usage Guide Basic Operations Read a value: yq '.a.b[0].c' file.yaml Pipe from STDIN: yq '.a.b[0].c' < file.yaml Update a yaml file in place: yq -i '.a.b[0].c = "cool"' file.yaml Update using environment variables: NAME=mike yq -i '.a.b[0].c = strenv(NAME)' file.yaml Advanced Operations Merge multiple files: # merge two files yq -n 'load("file1.yaml") * load("file2.yaml")' # merge using globs (note: `ea` evaluates all files at once instead of in sequence) yq ea '. as $item ireduce ({}; . * $item )' path/to/*.yml Multiple updates to a yaml file: yq -i ' .a.b[0].c = "cool" | .x.y.z = "foobar" | .person.name = strenv(NAME) ' file.yaml Find and update an item in an array: # Note: requires input file - add your file at the end yq -i '(.[] | select(.name == "foo") | .address) = "12 cat st"' data.yaml Convert between formats: # Convert JSON to YAML (pretty print) yq -Poy sample.json # Convert YAML to JSON yq -o json file.yaml # Convert XML to YAML yq -o yaml file.xml See recipes for more examples and the documentation for more information. Take a look at the discussions for common questions, and cool ideas Install Download the latest binary wget Use wget to download pre-compiled binaries. Choose your platform and architecture: For Linux (example): # Set your platform variables (adjust as needed) VERSION=v4.2.0 PLATFORM=linux_amd64 # Download compressed binary wget https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/releases/download/${VERSION}/yq_${PLATFORM}.tar.gz -O - |\ tar xz && sudo mv yq_${PLATFORM} /usr/local/bin/yq # Or download plain binary wget https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/releases/download/${VERSION}/yq_${PLATFORM} -O /usr/local/bin/yq &&\ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/yq Latest version (Linux AMD64): wget https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/releases/latest/download/yq_linux_amd64 -O /usr/local/bin/yq &&\ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/yq Available platforms: linux_amd64, linux_arm64, linux_arm, linux_386, darwin_amd64, darwin_arm64, windows_amd64, windows_386, etc. MacOS / Linux via Homebrew: Using Homebrew brew install yq Linux via snap: snap install yq Snap notes yq installs with strict confinement in snap, this means it doesn't have direct access to root files. To read root files you can: sudo cat /etc/myfile | yq '.a.path' And to write to a root file you can either use sponge: sudo cat /etc/myfile | yq '.a.path = "value"' | sudo sponge /etc/myfile or write to a temporary file: sudo cat /etc/myfile | yq '.a.path = "value"' | sudo tee /etc/myfile.tmp sudo mv /etc/myfile.tmp /etc/myfile rm /etc/myfile.tmp Run with Docker or Podman One-time use: # Docker - process files in current directory docker run --rm -v "${PWD}":/workdir mikefarah/yq '.a.b[0].c' file.yaml # Podman - same usage as Docker podman run --rm -v "${PWD}":/workdir mikefarah/yq '.a.b[0].c' file.yaml Security note: You can run yq in Docker with restricted privileges: docker run --rm --security-opt=no-new-privileges --cap-drop all --network none \ -v "${PWD}":/workdir mikefarah/yq '.a.b[0].c' file.yaml Pipe data via STDIN: You'll need to pass the -i --interactive flag to Docker/Podman: # Process piped data docker run -i --rm mikefarah/yq '.this.thing' < myfile.yml # Same with Podman podman run -i --rm mikefarah/yq '.this.thing' < myfile.yml Run commands interactively: docker run --rm -it -v "${PWD}":/workdir --entrypoint sh mikefarah/yq podman run --rm -it -v "${PWD}":/workdir --entrypoint sh mikefarah/yq It can be useful to have a bash function to avoid typing the whole docker command: yq() { docker run --rm -i -v "${PWD}":/workdir mikefarah/yq "$@" } yq() { podman run --rm -i -v "${PWD}":/workdir mikefarah/yq "$@" } Running as root: yq's container image no longer runs under root (#860). If you'd like to install more things in the container image, or you're having permissions issues when attempting to read/write files you'll need to either: docker run --user="root" -it --entrypoint sh mikefarah/yq podman run --user="root" -it --entrypoint sh mikefarah/yq Or, in your Dockerfile: FROM mikefarah/yq USER root RUN apk add --no-cache bash USER yq Missing timezone data By default, the alpine image yq uses does not include timezone data. If you'd like to use the tz operator, you'll need to include this data: FROM mikefarah/yq USER root RUN apk add --no-cache tzdata USER yq Podman with SELinux If you are using podman with SELinux, you will need to set the shared volume flag :z on the volume mount: -v "${PWD}":/workdir:z GitHub Action - name: Set foobar to cool uses: mikefarah/yq@master with: cmd: yq -i '.foo.bar = "cool"' 'config.yml' - name: Get an entry with a variable that might contain dots or spaces id: get_username uses: mikefarah/yq@master with: cmd: yq '.all.children.["${{ matrix.ip_address }}"].username' ops/inventories/production.yml - name: Reuse a variable obtained in another step run: echo ${{ steps.get_username.outputs.result }} See https://mikefarah.gitbook.io/yq/usage/github-action for more. Go Install: go install github.com/mikefarah/yq/v4@latest Use yq as a Go library The command above installs the yq CLI. To use yq in a Go program instead, add it to your Go module with go get github.com/mikefarah/yq/v4 and import github.com/mikefarah/yq/v4/pkg/yqlib. See examples/library/main.go for a simple, runnable example (go run ./examples/library). Community Supported Installation metho