I kept hitting jq: parse error on AI streams, so I built sjq

A developer built sjq, an MIT-licensed Rust CLI that parses OpenAI-compatible server-sent event streams from /v1/chat/completions and /v1/responses, printing one short line per event showing only the delta content instead of the full JSON envelope. The tool renders tool calls, reasoning_content, refusals, logprobs, usage blocks and multiple choices, and adds timing output including TTFT, total time, tokens/sec, plus connect, TLS handshake and TTFB when run through sjq curl. It ships 14 test fixtures covering multi-line data payloads, mid-stream errors, parallel tool calls, logprobs and CJK/emoji text.

If you work with LLMs, you've done this: curl -N <streaming endpoint | jq . And you've seen this: jq: parse error: Invalid numeric literal at line 1, column 9 Column 9. That's where data: ends and the JSON begins. An SSE stream isn't JSON — it's a framing protocol: data: {...} lines separated by blank lines, DONE at the end. jq never stood a chance. So I built sjq — jq, but for AI streaming. A small Rust CLI that parses OpenAI-compatible server-sent event streams /v1/chat/completions and /v1/responses and prints one short line per event, showing only what each event added . sjq curl -s $BASE/v1/chat/completions \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"model":"gemini-4-argon","stream":true,"messages": {"role":"user","content":"hi"} }' model: gemini-4-argon role: assistant data: 'Hi' data: ' there' data: ' 👋' … time: ttft=0.42s total=3.1s tok/s=258.2 Instead of 99% envelope JSON, you watch the actual content arrive — plus a timing line: TTFT, total, tokens/sec. Run through sjq curl and it also breaks out connect, TLS handshake, and TTFB, which is genuinely useful when you're debugging a slow provider. It understands tool calls name + arguments as they stream in , reasoning content , refusals, logprobs, usage blocks, and multiple choices — each rendered as its own labeled line. brew tap vivgrid/tap brew trust vivgrid/tap Homebrew 6+ requires trusting third-party taps brew install sjq Or from source: cargo install --git https://github.com/vivgrid/sjq one dependency: serde json . You can — sed 's/^data: //' | jq — and plenty of people do. But then you're staring at full envelope objects per chunk: ids, timestamps, object: "chat.completion.chunk" , finish reason: null fifty times over. The signal the tokens drowns in the envelope. sjq inverts that: the delta is the output; the envelope gets summarized once. MIT licensed, single binary. The repo ships 14 test fixtures covering the gnarly edges: multi-line data payloads, mid-stream errors, parallel tool calls, logprobs, CJK/emoji text. Repo: https://github.com/vivgrid/sjq https://github.com/vivgrid/sjq — feedback and weird streams welcome.