There's a few jq patterns I've adopted:

   echo "$SOME_JSON" | jq '.[]' --raw-output --compact-output | while read -r LINE ; do ... ; done

...lets you process stuff "record by record" pretty consistently. (and `( xxx ; yyy ; zzz ) | jq --slurp '.'` lets you do the reverse, "absorbing" multiple records into an array.

Don't forget `--argjson`

    echo "{}" | jq --argjson FOO "$( cat test.json )" '{ bar: $FOO }'

...lets you "load" json for merging, processing, formatting, etc. The leading "{}" is moderately necessary because `jq` technically _processes_ json, not generates it.

Finally, it's a huge cheat code for string formatting!!

     $ echo "{}" | jq \
        --arg FOO "hello \$world" \
        --arg BAR "complicated \| chars" \
        --arg ONE 1 \
        --arg TWO 2 \
        '"aaa \( $FOO ) and \( $BAR ) and \( ($ONE | tonumber) + ($TWO | tonumber) ) bbb"'
     "aaa hello $world and complicated \\| chars and 3  bbb"

...optionally with `--raw-output` (un-json-quoted), and even supports some regex substitution in strings via `... | gsub(...)`.

Yes, yes... it's overly complicated compared to you and your fancy "programming languages", but sometimes with shell stuff, the ability to _CAPTURE_ arbitrary command output (eg: `--argjson LS_OUTPUT="$( ls -lart ... )"`), but then also use JSON/jq to _safely_ marshal/deaden the data into JSON is really helpful!