xq

name: xq description: "⚡ IMPORTANT: Auto-trigger for XML operations. Use when: extract Maven dependencies, check POM version, list artifacts, find Spring beans, audit XML configs. Surgical extraction 90-99% token savings. Essential for pom.xml, .csproj, app.config, web.xml files."

XML manipulation with yq -p xml

Core rule

When you need to read, extract, filter or transform data from an XML file, use yq -p xml on the command line instead of reading the entire file.

yq natively parses XML with the -p xml flag, using the same jq-like filter syntax as for YAML. No additional tool is needed — if yq is installed, XML support is included.

Prerequisites: check/install yq

IMPORTANT: Same tool as YAML — check availability first:

yq --version
# Must show: yq (https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/) version v4.x

If yq is not installed:

Warning: use mikefarah/yq (Go), NOT kislyuk/yq (Python). Only the Go version supports -p xml.

Shell compatibility

yq works natively in both Bash and PowerShell. For filters containing | (pipe), use cmd /c in PowerShell:

# Bash — single quotes work
yq -p xml -oy '.project.version' pom.xml
yq -p xml -oy '.project.dependencies.dependency[] | select(.scope == "test")' pom.xml

# PowerShell — simple filters work directly
yq -p xml -oy ".project.version" pom.xml

# Filters with | need cmd /c wrapping
cmd /c 'yq -p xml -oy ".project.dependencies.dependency[] | select(.scope == \"test\")" pom.xml'

Usage patterns

Extract a value from pom.xml

yq -p xml -oy '.project.version' pom.xml
# → 3.2.1

yq -p xml -oy '.project.groupId' pom.xml
# → com.axa.france

yq -p xml -oy '.project.artifactId' pom.xml
# → osmose-api

Extract properties / configuration block

yq -p xml -oy '.project.properties' pom.xml
# → java.version: "17"
#   spring-boot.version: 3.2.0
#   maven.compiler.source: "17"

List dependencies

yq -p xml -oy '.project.dependencies.dependency[].artifactId' pom.xml
# → spring-boot-starter-web
#   spring-boot-starter-data-jpa
#   postgresql
#   lombok

Count elements

yq -p xml -oy '.project.dependencies.dependency | length' pom.xml
# → 5

Filter with select

# Find test-scoped dependencies
yq -p xml -oy '.project.dependencies.dependency[] | select(.scope == "test") | .artifactId' pom.xml
# → spring-boot-starter-test

cmd /c 'yq -p xml -oy ".project.dependencies.dependency[] | select(.scope == \"test\") | .artifactId" pom.xml'

Extract from .csproj (C# projects)

yq -p xml -oy '.Project.PropertyGroup.TargetFramework' MyApp.csproj
yq -p xml -oy '.Project.ItemGroup.PackageReference[].+@Include' MyApp.csproj

Extract from Spring / web.xml

yq -p xml -oy '.web-app.servlet[].servlet-name' web.xml
yq -p xml -oy '.beans.bean[].+@class' applicationContext.xml

Access XML attributes

In yq, XML attributes are represented with +@ prefix:

yq -p xml -oy '.project.dependencies.dependency[0].+@type' pom.xml
# For: <dependency type="jar">

yq -p xml -oy '.root.element.+@id' config.xml
# For: <element id="123">

Modify XML in-place

yq -i -p xml -o xml '.project.version = "4.0.0"' pom.xml
yq -i -p xml -o xml '.project.properties.java-version = "21"' pom.xml

Convert XML to JSON or YAML

# XML → JSON
yq -p xml -o json '.project.properties' pom.xml
# → {"java.version": "17", "spring-boot.version": "3.2.0", ...}

# XML → YAML
yq -p xml -o yaml pom.xml

# Full conversion to file
yq -p xml -o json pom.xml > pom.json

yq -p xml -o json ".project.properties" pom.xml

Common XML file types