Output Formats

Control how the CLI renders command results with different output formats.

Use the --output (or -o) flag to choose how command results are displayed. Different formats serve different purposes, from human-readable tables to machine-parseable JSON.

Available formats

text

Human-readable table format (default)

cpln gvc get

Best for:

• Interactive terminal use
• Quick visual scanning
• Development and debugging

Text output may truncate long values. Use json or yaml for complete data.

json

Complete JSON output

cpln gvc get --output json

Best for:

• Programmatic parsing with jq
• Automation scripts
• Inspecting all resource properties

View specific field

cpln gvc get my-gvc -o json | jq '.spec.staticPlacement.locationLinks'

yaml

Complete YAML output

cpln gvc get --output yaml

Best for:

• Human-readable structured data
• Inspecting nested configurations
• Exporting for documentation

Save to file

cpln gvc get my-gvc -o yaml > my-gvc.yaml

json-slim / yaml-slim

Simplified output without metadata

cpln gvc get my-gvc --output json-slim
cpln gvc get my-gvc --output yaml-slim

Removes non-essential properties:

• IDs
• Versions
• Timestamps
• System-generated metadata

Best for:

• Creating templates for cpln apply
• GitOps configurations
• Copying resources between environments

cpln gvc get my-gvc -o yaml-slim > gvc-template.yaml

tf

Terraform HCL format

cpln gvc get my-gvc --output tf

Best for:

• Generating Terraform configurations
• Migrating from CLI to Terraform
• Infrastructure as Code workflows

See Terraform Provider for details.

crd

Kubernetes Custom Resource Definition (K8s CRD) format

cpln workload get my-workload --output crd

Best for:

• Kubernetes operator workflows
• K8s-native GitOps (e.g. ArgoCD)
• Hybrid Kubernetes/Control Plane setups

See Kubernetes Operator for details.

names

Resource names only

cpln gvc get --output names

Best for:

• Scripts and automation
• Piping to other commands
• Quick listing

Output modifiers

Limit results with --max

Control the number of records displayed:

cpln workload get --max 10

• Default: 50
• Values less than 1 return all records

Format timestamps with --ts

Control timestamp formatting in text output:

ISO 8601 format

cpln workload get --ts iso

The --ts flag only applies when --output=text.

Disable color with --color

Remove ANSI color codes from output:

cpln gvc get --color=false

Useful for:

• Logging to files
• CI/CD environments
• Systems that don’t support colored output

Color is automatically disabled when stdout is not a terminal.

Common use cases

Export a resource for GitOps

cpln gvc get production-gvc --output yaml-slim > production-gvc.yaml

Edit the file, then apply:

cpln apply --file production-gvc.yaml

Parse JSON with jq

Extract specific fields:

Get location links

cpln gvc get my-gvc -o json | jq -r '.spec.staticPlacement.locationLinks[]'

Convert to Terraform

Export existing resources to Terraform format:

cpln gvc get my-gvc -o tf > main.tf
cpln workload get my-app --gvc my-gvc -o tf > main.tf

Troubleshooting output

Output is truncated

Text output truncates long values for readability. Use json or yaml to see complete data:

cpln gvc get my-gvc --output json

Color codes in logs

Disable color for cleaner logs:

cpln <command> --color=false

Or redirect stderr to remove color automatically:

cpln <command> 2>&1 | tee output.log

Too many results

Limit output with --max:

cpln workload get --max 20

Or use query filters to narrow results:

cpln workload query --tag environment=production

Next steps

Common Options

Learn about all shared CLI flags

cpln apply

Use slim output for GitOps workflows