How to match strings with a regex inside jq — test()

Keep the rows whose name matches a pattern — here, names starting with a.

Every filter was executed against the cheatsheet's sample config.json with jq 1.7 before publishing; the sample file sits at the bottom of the cheatsheet so you can reproduce every output.

jq -r '.users[] | select(.name | test("^a")) | .name' config.json
# output: ana        (names starting with "a")

jq Cheatsheet one-page card — 30 filters that actually work — The full one-page card — jq Cheatsheet. Get the complete cheatsheet on GitHub