jq fish plugin
October 22, 2025 · View on GitHub
Interactively build jq expressions (gojq is also supported).
This fish plugin gives you jq superpowers! (See also: upstream zsh plugin.)
This fish fork is not as well tested yet!
Table of contents
Demos
Interactive jq query construction
Insert jq query in the middle of a pipeline
Installation
Besides jq, this plugin also requires fzf (a recent version) to be installed and available on your PATH.
For automatic yaml support, install gojq as well.
Fisher
fisher install rmartine-ias/jq-fish-plugin
Usage
- type out a command that you expect to produce json on its standard output
- press alt + j
- start typing jq expression and watch it being evaluated in real time (like a true REPL!)
- use up/down and hit tab to select one of the suggestions
- or type out a jq query on your own
- press enter, and the jq expression is appended to your initial command!
Key bindings
Bringing up the jq query builder for a shell command: alt + j
During interactive querying, the following shortcuts can be used:
| Shortcut | Effect |
|---|---|
ctrl+k or up | Navigate path queries |
ctrl+j or down | Navigate path queries |
tab | Select path query |
shift + up | Scroll up |
shift + down | Scroll down |
alt + up | Scroll up full page |
alt + down | Scroll down full page |
shift+up or ctrl+p | Scroll up |
shift+down or ctrl+n | Scroll down |
ctrl+u | Scroll up half page |
ctrl+d | Scroll down half page |
alt+up or ctrl+b | Scroll up full page |
alt+down or ctrl+f | Scroll down full page |
ctrl+r | Reload input |
ctrl+y | Yank selected path to clipboard |
gojq support
If you want to use an alternative jq implementation, like
gojq then you can override the default jq
command used by the plugin. Set the following environment variable:
JQ_REPL_JQ=gojq
Internals
The project consists of the following components:
- a
fishplugin providing a line-editor widget, utilizing thejq-replcommand - a
jq-replcommand to interactively build jq expressions, utilizing fzf for its UI - a
jq-pathscommand to get all valid jq paths in the provided JSON document, used for suggesting paths.
Troubleshooting
MacOS: Pressing alt-j creates a ∆ symbol in iTerm2
You need to remap your alt-key to Esc+ in iTerm2:
Cmd + ,to enter preferences- Go to Profiles
- select your profile from the pane on the left hand side
- go to the keys tab
- Set Left Option (⌥ ) Key to
Esc+
See other suggestions on stackoverflow if the above one doesn't help you: https://stackoverflow.com/q/196357/205318
Another option is to map to ctrl+j instead by putting this in your .zshrc:
bindkey `^j` jq-complete