Group by field

Count records grouped by status field

jq 'group_by(.status) | map({status: .[0].status, count: length})' data.json

More jq commands

Flatten nested array

jq 'flatten(1)' nested.json

Flatten one level of nested arrays
Convert array to object (index_by)

jq 'INDEX(.[]; .id)' items.json

Build an object keyed by the id field
Merge two objects

jq -s '.[0] * .[1]' base.json override.json

Deep merge two JSON objects (right wins on conflicts)
Extract nested value safely

jq '.config?.database?.host // "localhost"' config.json

Optional chaining with fallback default value
Sort by numeric field

jq 'sort_by(.timestamp) | reverse | .[0:5]' events.json

Get 5 most recent events sorted by timestamp descending