Output formats

Every command renders through one output layer, so what you learn once applies everywhere. Set the format with -o/--output.

Formats

Format	Best for
table	Reading at a terminal (the default there).
jsonl	Pipelines; one JSON object per line (the default in a pipe).
json	A single JSON array, for tools that want one document.
csv	Spreadsheets and data tools.
tsv	Tab-separated, for cut and friends.
url	Just the URL column, one per line.
raw	The first column, unadorned (also used by --template).

auto

The default is auto: a table when stdout is a terminal, JSONL when it is a pipe or file. So the same command reads well by eye and composes well in a script with no extra flags:

wiki search "physics"            # a table on screen
wiki search "physics" | cat      # JSONL into the pipe

Picking columns

--fields selects and orders columns by name, in any format:

wiki search "volcano" --fields title,description -o csv
wiki revisions "Pi" --fields revid,user,timestamp

--no-header drops the header row from table and csv/tsv, which is handy when feeding another command:

wiki search "physics" -n 1 --fields title -o csv --no-header

Limiting results

-n/--limit caps how many rows come back. 0 means the API default:

wiki search "cat" -n 5
wiki category Physics -n 100

URLs

-o url prints just the URL of each row, perfect for piping into a fetcher or xargs:

wiki links "Alan Turing" -o url | head
wiki search "turing" -o url | xargs -I{} echo open {}

Templates

--template runs a Go text/template over each row's underlying value, for fully custom lines. It implies raw output:

wiki search "physics" --template '{{.Title}} => {{.URL}}'
wiki revisions "Pi" --template '{{.Timestamp}} {{.User}}'

The fields available are the JSON fields of each record; see the structured output of a command (-o json) to discover them.

Exit codes

Commands set a precise exit code so scripts can branch on the outcome. They are listed on the troubleshooting page.