wtf is gojq?

Gojq is a rewrite of the popular command-line tool jq, built entirely in Go. The original jq is a widely-used program that lets you slice, filter, and transform JSON data from the terminal. Gojq does the same thing but is built without any C library dependencies, which makes it easier to compile and distribute across different operating systems without worrying about system library compatibility. From the command line, you pipe JSON text into gojq and write a short query expression to extract or reshape the data. For example, you can pull a specific field out of a JSON object, loop over an array and print each item, or do arithmetic on numeric values, all in a single line. Error messages are designed to show exactly where a query went wrong, which makes it easier to fix mistakes without guessing. Installation is available through Homebrew on macOS, through Docker, or by building from the Go source directly. For developers writing Go programs, gojq can also be imported as a library, letting you run jq-style queries against JSON data inside your own application code rather than shelling out to an external command. Compared to the original jq, gojq handles large integers without rounding errors, reads and writes YAML in addition to JSON, and fixes several edge cases around date formatting and string handling. It intentionally leaves out a handful of flags and functions from the original jq, mostly ones related to output ordering or rarely-used features, and the README documents each omission clearly. The project is licensed under MIT and is suitable for both personal scripting and embedding in production Go applications.