> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.scrapegraphai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Using JSON mode for scripting

> Pipe just-scrape output to jq, files, or other tools with --json

Every `just-scrape` command supports a `--json` flag that switches to machine-readable output. When active:

* The ASCII banner is hidden
* Spinners and progress indicators are suppressed
* Interactive prompts are disabled
* Only minified JSON is written to stdout

This makes `just-scrape` easy to use in shell scripts, CI pipelines, and AI agent workflows.

## Basic usage

```bash theme={null}
just-scrape <command> [args] --json
```

## Examples

### Save results to a file

```bash theme={null}
just-scrape extract https://store.example.com/shoes \
  -p "Extract all product names and prices" \
  --json > products.json
```

### Extract a specific field with jq

```bash theme={null}
just-scrape credits --json | jq '.remaining'

just-scrape history extract --json | jq '.requests[] | {id: .request_id, status}'
```

### Convert a page to markdown and save it

```bash theme={null}
just-scrape scrape https://docs.example.com/api \
  --json | jq -r '.results.markdown.data[0]' > api-docs.md
```

### Chain commands in a script

```bash theme={null}
#!/bin/bash
# Extract a list of URLs and save each result
while IFS= read -r url; do
  just-scrape extract "$url" \
    -p "Extract the page title and main content" \
    --json >> results.jsonl
done < urls.txt
```

### Use in a CI pipeline

```yaml theme={null}
# GitHub Actions example
- name: Extract changelog
  run: |
    just-scrape scrape https://github.com/org/repo/releases \
      --json | jq -r '.results.markdown.data[0]' > CHANGELOG.md
```

## Response structure

The JSON output mirrors the v2 API response for each command. Common shapes:

* **`extract`** — `{ id, json, raw, usage, metadata }`
* **`scrape`** — `{ id, results: { markdown: { data: [...] }, ... }, metadata }`
* **`search`** — `{ id, results: [...], json, metadata }`
* **`crawl`** — the CLI polls until the job reaches a terminal state, then prints `{ id, status, finished, total, ... }`
* **`credits`** — `{ remaining, used, plan, jobs: { crawl: {used, limit}, monitor: {used, limit} } }`
* **`validate`** — `{ status, uptime }`

For credits:

```json theme={null}
{
  "remaining": 4820,
  "used": 180,
  "plan": "Starter",
  "jobs": {
    "crawl": { "used": 0, "limit": 50 },
    "monitor": { "used": 1, "limit": 100 }
  }
}
```

<Tip>
  `--json` mode is especially useful when calling `just-scrape` from AI coding agents. It eliminates decorative output and saves tokens.
</Tip>