celq

celq is a command-line tool for evaluating Common Expression Language (CEL) expressions. It processes JSON input, performs computations, and outputs results. Think of it as if jq supported CEL.

Quick Start

celq reads JSON from the input and lets users process it with CEL:

echo '["apples", "bananas", "blueberry"]' | celq 'this.filter(s, s.contains("a"))'
# Outputs: ["apples","bananas"]

celq can also evaluate expressions with arguments, without reading from the input:

celq -n --arg='fruit:string=apple' 'fruit.contains("a")'
# Outputs: true

Popular configuration formats such as JSON5, YAML, TOML, and XML are supported. The closely related format NDJSON is also supported.

For detailed usage examples and recipes, see the manual.

Interactive Playground

Want to try celq without installing anything? Visit the celq-playground to try it in your browser!

Why?

There are implementations of CEL for Go, Java, C++, JavaScript, Python, C#, Rust, Ruby, and possibly more languages.

celq brings the same CEL syntax to the command-line. celq is not necessarily better than jq, but perhaps it makes it easier to reuse snippets of code across multiple places.

Moreover, the CEL specification is simpler than the jqlang specification. If you need something less powerful than jq or Python, then celq might be what you are looking for.

Check our comparison with other tools for more details.

Installation

Pre-built Binaries

We publish pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and Windows in celq's GitHub Releases page. To install the current version for Linux or macOS, run:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://get-celq.github.io/install.sh | bash

Notice that the installer tries not to be clever and doesn't modify $PATH or overwrite existing files. To specify a destination, use the --to flag:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://get-celq.github.io/install.sh | \
    bash -s -- --to DESTINATION

See the installation guide for more details on the installer such as --force to replace existing binaries, --target to specify which binary to download, versioned URLs, GitHub tokens, attestations, and more.

Homebrew (macOS)

If you are a macOS Homebrew user, then you can install celq with:

brew install get-celq/tap/celq

Scoop (Windows)

If you are a Scoop user on Windows, you can install celq with:

scoop bucket add get-celq https://github.com/get-celq/scoop-bucket
scoop install get-celq/celq

Chocolatey (Windows)

If you are a Chocolatey user on Windows, you can install celq with:

choco install celq

WinGet (Windows)

If you are a WinGet user on Windows, you can install celq with:

winget install IvanIsCoding.celq

Cargo

Installing From Source

If you want to install from source, celq publishes to crates.io.

cargo install celq --locked

Installing With cargo-binstall

If you have cargo-binstall installed, you can install pre-built binaries directly:

cargo binstall celq

Mise

celq can be used with mise. To install celq, use the Conda back-end:

mise use -g conda:celq

Alternatively, add this to mise.toml:

[tools]
"conda:celq" = "latest"

GitHub Actions

celq can be used in GitHub actions. For one-off commands, the get-celq/celq-action is the quickest way:

- name: Example Celq Action
  id: exampleID
  uses: get-celq/celq-action@main
  with:
    cmd: celq 'this.exampleID' < example.json

- name: Reuse a variable obtained in another step
  run: echo ${{ steps.exampleID.outputs.result }}

See the installation guide for more details on GitHub actions such as pinning the celq version and the Action itself.

If you are going to use celq in scripts or for multiple calls, we recommend using taiki-e/install-action:

- uses: taiki-e/install-action@v2
  with:
    tool: celq

Nix

celq is available for Nix. To run it as a Flake:

nix run github:IvanIsCoding/celq -- -n '"Hello World"'

By default, Nix fetches the stable version from crates.io. If you want to run the code from HEAD, use the dev derivation:

nix run github:IvanIsCoding/celq#dev -- -n '"Hello World"'

See the installation guide for other Nix setups.

FreeBSD

FreeBSD builds are tested with freebsd-vm and cross-compiled with Zig. Although celq is not yet in the ports tree, it does publish pre-built binaries:

VERSION=v0.7.1
RELEASE_URL=https://github.com/IvanIsCoding/celq/releases/download/${VERSION}
PLATFORM=x86_64 # or aarch64

fetch ${RELEASE_URL}/celq-freebsd-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz

tar xzf celq-freebsd-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz
su root -c 'install -m 755 celq /usr/local/bin/'

celq can also be installed from source following the Cargo section. We strive to always compile with the Rust version provided in the ports tree.

OpenBSD

OpenBSD builds are tested in CI using the latest stable release. celq strives to always compile with the Rust version provided in the ports tree. Refer to the Cargo section for installation instructions.

NetBSD

NetBSD builds are tested in CI against the latest stable release. celq aims to remain compatible with the Rust version provided by the NetBSD pkgsrc quarterly branch. See the Cargo section for installation instructions.

NPM (Node.js/JavaScript)

celq is packaged for NPM. Node.js users can install celq in their project with:

npm install celq

This adds celq to package.json and makes it available for scripts. It is also possible to run single commands with npx:

npx celq -n '"Hello World"'

Python

celq is packaged for PyPI. Python users can install it with pip:

pip install celq

If you have uv installed, celq can be used as a tool:

uvx celq -n '"Hello World"'

Conda Forge

celq is available on conda-forge and can be installed with conda, mamba, micromamba, and pixi:

conda install -c conda-forge celq

If you have pixi, you can run celq in a temporary environment with:

pixi exec celq -n '"Hello World"'

Skills

To teach agents how to use celq, we provide a skill at get-celq/agent-skills.

Install it with the skills CLI:

npx skills add get-celq/agent-skills --skill celq

Or install it with the GitHub CLI:

gh skill install get-celq/agent-skills celq

Limitations

Eager JSON Parsing

celq eagerly parses all JSON input into memory before evaluation. This design was made to simplify the code implementation, at the cost of memory and performance.

Currently, there are no benchmarks for celq. I believe the tool is "good enough" for my personal use. That might be revisited in the future. In the meantime, expect celq to be slower than jq. With that being said, celq feels snappy in practice. celq glues together Rust parsers that are performant with a CEL engine that strives to be fast.

CEL Implementation Differences

celq uses cel-rust, a community-maintained Rust implementation of CEL, rather than the official Go implementation.

There may be edge cases or advanced features where behavior differs from the official implementation. If you find one, open an issue at the celq repository and we'll triage the issue before sending it to cel-rust.

Malformed expressions

Currently, the error messages for CEL expressions that are invalid are cryptic. We will enhance them in future releases.

Non-Goals

REPL

While conceptually interesting, celq does not aim to be a CEL REPL. In the original author's view, that should live on a separate binary.

Full YAML Support

celq works with JSON. YAML is supported as a best-effort. If the ingested YAML can be translated to JSON, celq most likely works fine. Full YAML support is out-of-scope, as the specification has too many edge cases.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to the maintainers of:

• cel-rust for providing the CEL evaluation engine that powers celq
• cel-python for publishing their CLI. celq has heavily drawn from their interface
• jaq for giving an excellent blueprint on how to test a Rust CLI
• gron for greppable JSON

Large Language Models Disclosure

Many commits in this repository were co-authored by LLMs. All commits were guided and reviewed by a human. I tried my best to keep things simple and auditable.

All the documentation in the manual has been hand-crafted. That was done to keep the tone of the original author. If you find a typo or a grammar mistake, please send a pull request.

License

This project is dual-licensed under the MIT License and Apache 2.0 licenses. See LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE files for details.

The install.sh published with each GitHub release and its template at the root of the repository (template_install.sh) are licensed independently. Those files are under the CC0-1.0 license. They are the original work of Casey Rodarmor from just and have been adapted for celq.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in celq by you shall be dual-licensed under the MIT License and the Apache 2.0 license. Contributions to template_install.sh shall be dedicated to the public domain. Any additional terms or conditions shall not apply.