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It's a bit arcane to use, but has proven itself over and over when doing little tasks with AWS CLI returns.

Exactly right.

I use jq to mangle get/list requests from AWS (and others) and then recursively hit each element for whatever reason. Without jq none of my workflows in this area would be remotely easy.

TLDR: Learn JQ! It is like sed and grep, but for JSON.

If you're using AWS you're better using the built in option available for the cli. The --query option (and often combined with the --output option) does this, and uses JMESPath. Especially when you're scripting, it eliminates the need for having yet another tool.

> If you're using AWS you're better using the built in option available for the cli. The --query option (and often combined with the --output option) does this, and uses JMESPath.

Jq is so much more capable than jmespath that I find myself using jq on the json output of AWS CLI commands more than using the built-in query option. Sure, it requires another tool, but it’a often the best tool for the job.

That's a great point. Leverage --query for good justice.

Unless you need some additional juice, where jq supports actually transforming the return.

Quite arguably a heavier tool, e.g. a boto3 script becomes appropriate where --query falls short.

But options are a great thing to have.

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