Consider adding "gron" to your toolset, for easy json processing in the command line. It is cruder than jq, but it has a nice aura of simplicity that jq lacks.

gron is wonderful for

    gron | rg <some fragment> | gron -u

which gives you a structurally accurate subset of a json document.

I do exactly this, and I’m very happy with it. I tried switching to another tool like Jless when it got posted on HN last year, but it wasn’t enough of a game-changer compared to jq itself.

I don’t get to interactively change the query, but hitting ‘q’ and running another jq query is in some sense more powerful, because it does not just allow me to “focus the lens” but also completely alter it.

Building a jq query by progressively testing and viewing is really nice. I love jq!