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Commander jq is a weekly newsletter about the jq command-line tool. One filter per issue, worked through line by line.

Every issue answers a question from the Commander's logbook — which ships still have cargo space?, which port pays most for iron? — using data from a space-trading API. Nested arrays, response envelopes, pagination: the shapes that make jq hard in the first place.

Get the data

Every example runs against the same JSON files. Download them once they are available and follow along:

jq '.data[] | select(.cargo.capacity > .cargo.units) | .symbol' ships.json

If that line makes sense to you, you already know more jq than most. If it doesn't, that's what the newsletter is for.

Who this is for

Developers, ops people, anyone who works with JSON APIs and keeps pasting jq snippets from Stack Overflow without knowing why they work.

Get the weekly recipe