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Output formats

nsc ships five output formats. Default is table on a TTY and JSON when stdout is piped.

The five formats

Flag Purpose
--output table (default for TTY) Rich table with auto-selected columns
--output json (default when piped) Records as a JSON array (single-record writes emit the resulting record dict)
--output jsonl One JSON object per line — good for streaming
--output yaml YAML; useful when you'll round-trip to -f file.yaml
--output csv CSV with nested fields flattened to dotted paths (status.label) 
nsc dcim devices list                                   # table on TTY, JSON if piped
nsc dcim devices list -o json                           # explicit
nsc dcim devices list --output csv > devices.csv
nsc dcim devices list -o yaml > devices.yaml
nsc dcim devices list -o jsonl | jq '. | select(.status.value == "active")'

Auto-selected columns

Heuristic for the table view:

  1. Always id.
  2. Then any field named name, slug, or display.
  3. Then up to 6 scalar fields from the resource's GET response schema.

Override per <tag> <resource> in ~/.nsc/config.yaml:

columns:
  dcim:
    devices: [id, name, status, site, role]

Unknown column names are silently ignored, so the same config remains valid across NetBox versions and plugin changes.

Compact JSON

nsc dcim devices list -o json --compact > devices.json

One-line records — convenient for jq chains and ndjson tooling.

Pagination and --all

nsc dcim devices list                       # default page (50 records)
nsc dcim devices list --all                 # follow `next` to completion
nsc dcim devices list --limit 200           # cap at 200
nsc dcim devices list --filter status=active --all

--all shows a Rich progress bar on TTY. For machine output, prefer --output json --all and pipe.