Azure CLI Query JSON Output using JMESPath

Azure CLI retuns JSON output bydefault. To find the right information we use JMESPath to query the JSON string. Azure CLI Allows you to pass the value in --query parameter.

Before we jump to the Azure CLI we can dive into the basics of JMESPath to find a bit more details.

Let's assume that we have the below sample JSON

{
    "employees":
    [
        {
            "name": "Wriju", 
            "email": "[e-mail]",
            "city": "Bangalore"        
        },
        {
            "name": "Wrishika", 
            "sal":
            {
                "jan":"100",
                "feb":"200"
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "Wrishika", 
            "email": "[e-mail]",
            "city": "Mysore",
            "sal":
            {
                "jan":"100",
                "feb":"200"
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "Writam", 
            "email": "[e-mail]",
            "city": "Siliguri"
        }
    ]
}

To get all the values we can write
employees then it will return all the values. If you want to view the values only from field name then you can use

employee[*].name

This would result in as

[
  "Wriju",
  "Wrishika",
  "Wrishika",
  "Writam"
]

Now imagine you want to read the jan value from sal property then you would write

employee[1].sal.jan

so on and so forth.

In Azure CLI we can also use it filter the output result. If I want to get the admin user name of a VM that information is stored in

"osProfile": {
      "adminPassword": null,
      "adminUsername": "wriju",
      "allowExtensionOperations": true,
      "computerName": "wm-Ubuntu18",
      ...

So we can use osProfile.adminUsername

The final Azure CLI would look like,

az vm show -g rg-vm -n wm-Ubuntu18 --query "osProfile.adminUsername"