jsoned

jless, but you can actually edit things.

Keyboard-driven TUI for viewing and editing JSON files — with full structural editing, undo/redo, search, and format conversion between JSON, YAML, TOML, CSV, and JSONL.

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Why not jless / fx / jq / difftastic?

Tool	View	Edit	Convert	Diff	Pipe mode
jsoned	✓	✓ full	✓	✓ structural	✓
jless	✓	✗ read-only	✗	✗	✗
fx	✓	✗ filter only	✗	✗	✗
jq	✗ no TUI	✗	partial	✗	✓
difftastic / delta	✗ no TUI	✗	✗	✓ line-based	✓

jsoned's diff is structural (compares by key path, not by line) — it's not trying to replace difftastic/delta for general text diffing, but it understands JSON/YAML/TOML/CSV shape directly, so reordered keys or reformatted whitespace don't show up as noise, and it can even diff across two different formats (a.json --diff b.yaml).

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Features

• 3-panel layout — Source (annotated JSON), Explorer (key/type/value table), Detail (node preview)
• Edit scalar values inline with type conversion (String ↔ Number ↔ Boolean ↔ Null)
• Rename keys, add / delete / duplicate / move nodes
• Wrap any node in an Array or Object with a single keypress
• Undo / redo — 50-level history, captured before every change
• Copy / paste nodes within the document
• Sort Object children alphabetically; expand or collapse entire subtrees
• Search — / to search keys and values, n/N to navigate matches
• Structural lint — automatic checks on load and after every edit (empty keys, excessive depth); warnings highlighted in orange; Tab/Shift+Tab to navigate; correcting a node clears its warning instantly
• Plugins — | opens a Plugins menu to transform the selected node; ships with a jq plugin (bundled, no external jq binary needed) and a fake plugin (generates fake/random JSON data — names, emails, phone numbers, and more — from a small DSL, e.g. [10] { name, email, job })
• Diff — jsoned a.json --diff b.json opens a read-only, structural (key-path) diff between two files, even across formats (JSON vs YAML vs TOML vs CSV); headless with --to text|json
• Save as any supported format with W — format picker + filename editor in-TUI
• Pipe mode — cat file.json | jsoned reads stdin; s writes JSON to stdout and exits
• Headless conversion — jsoned file.yaml --to json with no TUI
• Dot-path indicator (steps.0.extracted) always shows where you are in the tree
• Fast on large files — flat render model, no DOM reflow

Documentation

• USAGE.md — full documentation
• CHANGELOG.md — what's new
• BENCHMARK.md — reproducible performance numbers on large files
• jsoned-keymap.html — printable keyboard reference (HTML)
• jsoned-keymap.pdf — printable keyboard reference (PDF)

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Installation

cargo install jsoned

Requires Rust 1.75+.

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Usage

jsoned file.json          # open in TUI
jsoned file.yaml          # auto-detect format, open in TUI
jsoned                    # start with an empty JSON object

# Stdin / stdout pipe mode
cat file.json | jsoned              # read from stdin, TUI on stderr
cat file.json | jsoned > out.json   # edit then s to write to stdout and exit
TERAPI_JSON_EDITOR=jsoned terapi …  # drop-in external editor integration

# Headless conversion — no TUI
jsoned file.yaml --to json
jsoned file.json --to yaml --output converted.yaml
jsoned data.csv  --to json

# Diff — structural, key-path comparison between two files (any supported formats)
jsoned a.json --diff b.json                    # read-only diff TUI
jsoned a.json --diff b.json --to text          # headless, +/-/~ report to stdout
jsoned a.json --diff b.json --to json | jq .   # headless, machine-readable report

# JSONL — one JSON value per line, opens as an array (each line = one element)
jsoned data.jsonl              # edit like any array
jsoned data.jsonl --to json    # convert to a single JSON array
jsoned data.json --to jsonl    # array → one line per element; non-array root → single line

Supported formats: json, yaml, toml, csv, jsonl

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Keybindings

Prefer a printable cheat sheet? HTML or PDF — one-page A4-landscape reference.

Key	Action
↑ / ↓ or k / j	Navigate
PgUp / PgDn	Jump 20 rows
gg / G	Jump to first / last row
Enter / Space	Fold / unfold
e	Edit selected scalar
r	Rename selected key
a	Add child (container) or sibling (scalar)
w	Wrap node in Array or Object
d	Delete node
D	Duplicate node
K / J	Move node up / down
y / p / P	Copy / paste after / paste before
S	Sort Object children by key
E / C	Expand all / collapse all from selected
u / Ctrl+R	Undo / redo
/	Search by key or value
n / N	Next / previous match
Tab / Shift+Tab	Next / previous lint warning
|	Open Plugins menu (e.g. run a jq filter, or generate fake data with fake)
s	Save
W	Save as (format picker + filename editor)
[ / ]	Toggle Source / Detail panel
Ctrl+E	Toggle Explorer fullscreen
Esc	Cancel / clear search / clear status
q	Quit
Ctrl+C	Force quit immediately (works even inside dialogs/menus)

Diff mode

jsoned a.json --diff b.json opens a separate, read-only view with its own keybindings:

Key	Action
j / k or ↓ / ↑	Navigate
] / n	Jump to next change
[ / N	Jump to previous change
o	Toggle hiding unchanged rows
q / Esc	Quit
Ctrl+C	Force quit immediately

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Format notes

Format	Read	Write	Notes
JSON	✓	✓	Key order preserved
YAML	✓	✓
TOML	✓	✓	null values not supported by TOML
CSV	✓	✓	Export: dot-notation flatten + 1-level explosion; root can be object or array
JSONL	✓	✓	One JSON value per line ↔ a single JSON array; a non-array root exports as one line

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Other projects by TSODev

Project	Description
terapi	A keyboard-driven TUI for exploring, testing, and automating REST and GraphQL APIs, without leaving your terminal.
rowdy-db	A fast, modern, and rowdy Terminal User Interface (TUI) database management tool written in Rust.

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Author

Thierry Soulie — TSODev — thierry.soulie@tsodev.fr