CLI Output

Control how the CLI formats and delivers results using --format, --output, and --pretty.

---

Output Formats

Format	Description
json	Standard JSON (default)
ndjson	Newline-delimited JSON
csv	Comma-separated values

Format Compatibility

Operation	json	ndjson	csv
find-many	✅	✅	✅
find-many-or-throw	✅	✅	✅
find-first	✅	✅	✅
find-unique	✅	✅	✅
find-last	✅	✅	✅
find-first-or-throw	✅	✅	✅
find-unique-or-throw	✅	✅	✅
find-last-or-throw	✅	✅	✅
describe	✅	✅	❌

TIP

csv works with all find operations. Single-record operations output a header row plus one data row. Only describe does not support CSV.

---

Pretty Print

Use --pretty to format JSON output with indentation:

holysheets read find-many \
  --spreadsheet-id <ID> \
  --sheet <sheet-name> \
  --format json \
  --pretty

[
  {
    "name": "Cafe Central",
    "rating": "4.5"
  }
]

Without --pretty:

[{ "name": "Cafe Central", "rating": "4.5" }]

--pretty has no effect on csv or ndjson formats.

---

Writing to File

By default, output is printed to stdout. Use --output to write to a file instead:

holysheets read find-many \
  --spreadsheet-id <ID> \
  --sheet <sheet-name> \
  --format csv \
  --output ./out/places.csv

The directory will be created automatically if it does not exist.

---

Examples

Export all records as JSON to a file:

holysheets read find-many \
  --spreadsheet-id <ID> \
  --sheet <sheet-name> \
  --format json \
  --pretty \
  --output ./out/places.json

Stream as NDJSON (useful for piping):

holysheets read find-many \
  --spreadsheet-id <ID> \
  --sheet <sheet-name> \
  --format ndjson | jq '.name'

Export filtered data as CSV:

holysheets read find-many \
  --spreadsheet-id <ID> \
  --sheet <sheet-name> \
  --where-field rating --where-op gte --where-value 4 \
  --format csv \
  --output ./out/top-places.csv