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Output Formats

Control how the CLI formats command output.

Available Formats​

YAML (Default)​

Human-readable structured output.

When to use:

  • Interactive terminal use
  • Reading output directly
  • Debugging and development

Example:

dot-ai version

Output:

version: 1.2.1
server:
  version: 1.2.1
  healthy: true

JSON​

Raw API response, machine-parseable.

When to use:

  • Scripting and automation
  • Piping to other tools (jq, etc.)
  • AI agents processing output
  • CI/CD pipelines

Example:

dot-ai version --output json

Output:

{
  "version": "1.2.1",
  "server": {
    "version": "1.2.1",
    "healthy": true
  }
}

Setting Output Format​

Command-line flag:

dot-ai <command> --output json
dot-ai <command> --output yaml

Environment variable:

export DOT_AI_OUTPUT_FORMAT="json"
dot-ai <command>

Default: yaml

Processing Output​

Extract fields with jq:

dot-ai version --output json | jq '.server.version'

Filter arrays:

dot-ai resources --kind Deployment --output json | jq '.items[] | .metadata.name'

Combine with other tools:

dot-ai resources --kind Pod --output json | jq -r '.items[].metadata.name' | xargs -I {} echo "Pod: {}"

For AI Agents​

AI agents should use JSON output for structured parsing:

dot-ai <command> --output json

This ensures consistent, parseable responses without YAML formatting ambiguities.

Next Steps​