# josephburnett/jd

JSON diff and patch

Repository: https://github.com/josephburnett/jd
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/jd
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: diff, json, patch, yaml
Last push: 2026-04-22T19:22:57+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 80/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 78, release rhythm 72, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3589, "days_push": 133, "days_rel": 191, "gap_med": 1.5, "n_releases_24m": 19}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2297, forks 71 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:35.231304+00:00)

## What it is
jd is a command-line utility and Go library for diffing and patching JSON and YAML values. It supports a native human-readable diff format plus JSON Merge Patch (RFC 7386) and a subset of JSON Patch (RFC 6902), with format translation and a WASM-based web UI.

## Use cases
- diff two json files
- apply a json patch to a file
- convert between json patch and merge patch formats
- diff yaml files
- show structural differences between json documents in ci
- treat json arrays as sets when diffing

## When to choose
- you need structural, path-aware diffs of JSON or YAML rather than line-based text diffs
- you want to create or apply RFC 6902 / RFC 7386 patches from the command line
- you need a Go library for JSON diffing or patch translation
- you want minimal array diffs with context to keep patches valid

## When to avoid
- you need line-based diffs of arbitrary text files - use GNU diff instead
- you need full JSON Patch support including all RFC 6902 operations
- you need to diff formats other than JSON and YAML

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cli, developer-tools, json, yaml, parser
- domain: developer-tools, files, apis
- platform: cli, go, cross-platform, wasm, windows
- tags: json-diff, json-patch, merge-patch, rfc-6902, rfc-7386, yaml-diff, structural-diff, lcs-algorithm, github-action, command-line, docker, macos, linux

## Member repositories
- josephburnett/jd (main) score 80

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:35.231304+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:40:18.412657+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/josephburnett/jd (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:35.231304+00:00, sha e38014a4530c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.