Make JSON greppable by transforming it to discrete assignments
gron is a CLI tool designed to make JSON data greppable by transforming it into discrete JavaScript-like assignments. Instead of dealing with complex nested JSON structures, gron flattens the data into simple key-value pairs that show the complete path to each value, making it easy to search and filter using familiar command-line tools like grep and sed.
The tool excels at exploring APIs that return large, poorly documented JSON responses. By converting JSON into a flat format, you can quickly find specific values and understand their exact location within the data structure. gron also works in reverse - you can filter the flattened output and convert it back into properly formatted JSON using the --ungron flag.
gron is particularly valuable for developers, system administrators, and anyone who frequently works with JSON data from APIs or configuration files. It bridges the gap between powerful but complex tools like jq and simple text processing utilities, allowing users to leverage their existing knowledge of grep, sed, and other standard Unix tools for JSON manipulation.
# via Homebrew
brew install gron
# via Go
go install github.com/tomnomnom/gron@latest
# via Binary
Download from releases page and move to /usr/local/bin/