yam

A beautiful YAML viewer for the terminal.

Tree visualization, syntax highlighting, interactive TUI mode with inline editing.

Features

Feature	Description
Tree View	Beautiful tree visualization (Unicode/ASCII/Indent styles)
Type Annotations	Optional scalar type labels
Interactive TUI	Navigate, fold/unfold, search with vim-like keybindings
Inline Editing	Edit scalar values directly in TUI mode
Path Extraction	Query values with JSONPath-like syntax
JSON Support	Bidirectional YAML/JSON conversion
Formatting	Format YAML files with consistent styling
Diff	Structural comparison between YAML/JSON files

Installation

# Cargo install from a local checkout
cargo install --path .

# From source
git clone https://github.com/simota/yam.git
cd yam && cargo build --release

Quick Start

# View a YAML file
yam config.yaml

# Interactive TUI mode
yam -i config.yaml

# Pipe from stdin
cat config.yaml | yam

# Extract a value
yam '.metadata.name' config.yaml

# Output as JSON
yam --json config.yaml

# Format a YAML file
yam fmt config.yaml

# Format in-place
yam fmt -w config.yaml

# Compare two files
yam diff config-dev.yaml config-prod.yaml

Usage

yam [flags] [path] [file]

Flags:
  -i, --interactive    Interactive TUI mode
  -s, --style string   Tree style: unicode, ascii, indent (default "unicode")
  -t, --types          Show type annotations
  -j, --json           Output as JSON
  -r, --raw            Output raw value without decoration
  -h, --help           Help for yam
  -v, --version        Version for yam

Subcommands

yam fmt - Format YAML files

yam fmt [flags] [file]

Flags:
  -w, --write        Write result to source file instead of stdout
  -i, --indent int   Indentation width in spaces (default 2)
  -s, --sort-keys    Sort keys alphabetically

yam diff - Compare YAML/JSON files

yam diff [flags] <file1> <file2>

Flags:
  -i, --interactive   Interactive TUI mode with split view
  -s, --summary       Show only summary (no detailed diff)

Examples

View Kubernetes ConfigMap

kubectl get configmap my-config -o yaml | yam -i

Extract nested value

yam '.spec.containers[0].image' deployment.yaml

Convert YAML to JSON

yam --json values.yaml > values.json

Show type annotations

yam -t config.yaml

Format YAML with sorted keys

yam fmt --sort-keys config.yaml > config-sorted.yaml

Compare dev and prod configs

yam diff config-dev.yaml config-prod.yaml

Interactive diff with split view

yam diff -i config-dev.yaml config-prod.yaml

TUI Keybindings

Navigation

Key	Action
j / ↓	Move down
k / ↑	Move up
g / Home	Go to top
G / End	Go to bottom
Ctrl+d	Half page down
Ctrl+u	Half page up

Folding

Key	Action
Enter / o	Toggle fold
O	Expand all
C	Collapse all

Search

Key	Action
/	Start search
n	Next match
N	Previous match
Esc	Cancel search

Editing

Key	Action
e	Edit value
Enter	Confirm edit
Esc	Cancel edit
Ctrl+s	Save file
u	Undo
Ctrl+r	Redo

Diff TUI

Key	Action
n / ]	Next diff
N / [	Previous diff
q / Esc	Quit

Other

Key	Action
?	Toggle help
q	Quit

Built With

• clap - CLI parser
• crossterm - Terminal UI
• serde_yaml - YAML parser/emitter
• serde_json - JSON parser/emitter

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.