Developers lose time writing and recalling complex jq filters
Developers using jq for nontrivial JSON queries, transformations, and tests can spend substantial time digging through documentation and experimenting. Some know what they want to test but find translating it into jq tedious; others struggle to recall jq’s syntax. Today they rely on documentation, trial and error, and ChatGPT or other AI assistance.
For developers who query and transform JSON with jq. Mentioned from Nov 2023 to Mar 2026 on Hacker News.
4 different people described this problem in 4 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 4.0/10
- Pain
- 4.5/10
- Frequency
- 5.8/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
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For example I can write `jq` incantations, but it takes some time and man digging, so for non-trivial cases I can easily spend hour tinkering with it
In this case, it’s pretty easy to describe the tests I want to make in English, but translating that to jq commands is annoying and a bit tedious
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