jo

jo is a command-line tool that generates JSON output from shell commands. It solves the problem of constructing valid JSON within shell scripts, which typically requires complex escaping and quoting. Rather than manually building JSON strings, developers can use jo to specify key-value pairs directly as command arguments, and the tool handles the formatting and type inference. The tool recognizes various data types including null, booleans, strings, and numbers, and supports arrays and nested objects. It can also embed JSON from files or convert binary data to base64 for inclusion in JSON output.

The tool was developed by jpmens and is written in C. Jo is available through package managers and binaries on multiple platforms, making it accessible for developers working across different systems who need to programmatically generate JSON within shell scripts and automation tasks.