Download jq

jq is written in C and has no runtime dependencies, so it should be possible to build it for nearly any platform. Prebuilt binaries are available for Linux, macOS and Windows.

The binaries should just run, but on macOS and Linux you may need to make them executable first using chmod +x jq.

jq is licensed under the MIT license. For all of the gory details, read the file COPYING in the source distribution.

jq uses a C library for decimal number support. This is an ICU 1.8.1 licensed code obtained from the ICU downloads archive.
https://download.icu-project.org/files/decNumber/decNumber-icu-368.zip

Linux

jq is in the official Debian and Ubuntu repositories. Install using sudo apt-get install jq.
jq is in the official Fedora repository. Install using sudo dnf install jq.
jq is in the official openSUSE repository. Install using sudo zypper install jq.
jq is in the official Arch repository. Install using sudo pacman -S jq.
jq 1.7.1 binaries for AMD64 or ARM64 or i386.
jq 1.7 binaries for AMD64 or ARM64 or i386.
jq 1.6 binaries for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.5 binaries for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.4 binaries for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.3 binaries for AMD64 or i386.

macOS

Use Homebrew to install jq with brew install jq.
Use MacPorts to install jq with port install jq.
Use Fink to install jq with fink install jq.
jq 1.7.1 binaries for AMD64 or ARM64.
jq 1.7 binaries for AMD64 or ARM64.
jq 1.6 binary for AMD64.
jq 1.5 binary for AMD64.
jq 1.4 binaries for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.3 binaries for AMD64 or i386.

FreeBSD

pkg install jq as root installs a pre-built binary package.
make -C /usr/ports/textproc/jq install clean as root installs the jq port from source.

Solaris

pkgutil -i jq in OpenCSW for Solaris 10+, Sparc and x86.
jq 1.4 binaries for Solaris 11 AMD64 or i386.

Windows

Use winget to install jq with winget install jqlang.jq.
Use scoop to install jq with scoop install jq.
Use Chocolatey NuGet to install jq with choco install jq.
jq 1.7.1 executables for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.7 executables for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.6 executables for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.5 executables for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.4 executables for AMD64 or i386.
jq 1.3 executables for AMD64 or i386.

Checksums and signatures

SHA-256 checksums are provided for all release and pre-release binaries. They can be found under sig/v1.x/sha256sum.txt. The checksums for jq 1.7.1 are in sig/v1.7.1/sha256sum.txt. The checksums for jq 1.7 are in sig/v1.7/sha256sum.txt. The checksums for jq 1.6 are in sig/v1.6/sha256sum.txt. The checksums for jq 1.5 are in sig/v1.5/sha256sum.txt.

Additionally, all release artifacts are signed by a jq release key. We have two release keys, one for 1.6 and older releases, and one for 1.7 and newer releases. Signatures can be found under sig/v1.x/*.asc. The signatures for jq 1.7.1 are in sig/v1.7.1/*.asc. The signatures for jq 1.7 are in sig/v1.7/*.asc. The signatures for jq 1.6 are in sig/v1.6/*.asc. The signatures for jq 1.5 are in sig/v1.5/*.asc. You can use GnuPG to verify a signature by downloading the signature and running gpg --verify signature.asc.

From source on Linux, macOS, Cygwin, and other POSIX-like operating systems

You can build it using the usual ./configure && make && sudo make install rigmarole.

If you're interested in using the latest development version, try:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/jqlang/jq.git
cd jq
autoreconf -i
./configure
make
sudo make install

To build it from a git clone, you'll need to install a few packages first:

For Linux systems, these will all be in your system's package manager, and if you do development on the machine they're most likely already installed.

On macOS, these are all included in Apple's command line tools, which can be installed from Xcode. However, you may find that you need a newer version of Bison than the one provided by Apple. This can be found in Homebrew or MacPorts.

If you want to generate the lexer and parser from source you can use the --enable-maintainer-mode configure flag. This requires bison to be installed. Flex and Bison.

Docker

Docker image is available from GitHub Container Registry.

docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/jqlang/jq -n 'range(3)'

Building the documentation

jq's documentation is compiled into static HTML using Python. To build the docs, run pipenv run python3 build_website.py --root /output in the docs/ directory. To serve them locally, you can run python3 -m http.server. You'll need a few Python dependencies, which can be installed by following the instructions in docs/README.md.

The man page is built by make jq.1, or just make, also from the YAML docs, and you'll still need the Python dependencies to build the manpage.