[nikau]

Use gron for adhoc, then jq to script once you know what you need to do.

[goku12]

I'm going to leave a mention of jless [1] as well here. The purpose should be obvious from the name.

[1] https://jless.io/

[medv]

Also https://fx.wtf

[leonim]

I also find VisiData is useful for adhoc exploring of JSON data. You can also use it to explore multiple other formats. I find it really helpful, plus it gives that little burst of adrenaline from its responsive TUI, similar to fx and jless mentioned.

For my toolbox I include jq, gron, miller, VisiData, in addition to classics like sed, awk, and perl.

- https://github.com/saulpw/visidata - http://visidata.org/

Also there is a great introduction: - https://jsvine.github.io/intro-to-visidata/ "Intro to VisiData Tutorial" by Jeremy Singer-Vine