You can install any application/packages with brew on mac. If you want to know the exact command just search your package on https://brewinstall.org and you will get the set of commands needed to install that package.

First open terminal and install brew

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null

Now Install jq

brew install jq

On a Mac, the "most efficient" way to install jq would probably be using homebrew, e.g.

brew install jq

If you want the development version, you could try:

brew install --HEAD jq

but this has various pre-requisites.

Detailed instructions are on the "Installation" page of the jq wiki: https://github.com/stedolan/jq/wiki/Installation

The same page also includes details regarding installation from source, and has notes on installing with MacPorts.

The simplest way to install jq and test that it works is through brew and then using the simplest filter that merely formats the JSON

Install

brew is the easiest way to manage packages on a mac:

brew install jq

Need brew? Run the following command:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Failing that: instructions to install and use are on https://brew.sh/

Test

The . filter takes its input and produces it unchanged as output. This is the identity operator. (quote the docs)

echo '{ "name":"John", "age":31, "city":"New York" }' | jq .

The result should appear like so in your terminal:

{  "name": "John",  "age": 31,  "city": "New York"}