[figmert]

Here's an easier to understand query for what you're trying to do (at least it's easier to understand for me):

    cat input.json | jq -r '(first | keys) as $cols | $cols, (.[] | [.[$cols[]]]) | @tsv'

That whole map and from entries throws it off. It's not a good use for what you're doing. tsv expects a bunch of arrays, whereas you're getting a bunch of objects (with the header also being one) and then converting them to arrays. That is an unnecessary step and makes it a little harder to understand.

[randusername]

Thanks for sharing, this is much better, though I actually think it is the perfect example to explain something that is brain-slippery about jq

look at $cols | $cols

my brain says hmm that's a typo, clearly they meant ; instead of | because nothing is getting piped, we just have two separate statements. Surely the assignment "exhausts the pipeline" and we're only passing null downstream

the pipelining has some implicit contextual stuff going on that I have to arrive at by trial and error each time since it doesn't fit in my worldview while I'm doing other shell stuff

[figmert]

I totally agree, it did take me a while to come to terms with the syntax of assigning variables specifically due to that pipe at the end. I guess sometimes we just have to know the quirks of the relevant tooling we use. I used to use PHP heavily in the 4 and 5 days, and kinda got used to all the quirks it had. So during reviews, I would pick up a lot of issues some of my colleagues did not.

Interestingly some things do use a semicolon in jq, specifically while, until, reduce and some others I can't remember right now.

[chuckadams]

Honestly both of those make me do the confused-dog-head-tilt thing. I'd go for something sexp based, perhaps with infix composition, map, and flatmap operators as sugar.