Output Formats and Pipelines

Using Glazed output options and piping go-minitrace results to other tools

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📄 Output Formats and Pipelines — glaze help output-formats-and-pipelines
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Output Formats and Pipelines

Using Glazed output options and piping go-minitrace results to other tools

Exampleminitraceglazedoutputfields

All go-minitrace commands produce structured output through Glazed, which means you can choose the output format and select specific fields. This page shows how to use these options and how to pipe results to external tools.

Output formats

Every command that produces tabular output supports the --output flag:

FormatFlagBest for
Table--output table (default)Terminal viewing
JSON--output jsonPiping to jq or scripts
YAML--output yamlHuman-readable structured output
CSV--output csvSpreadsheets, data import
Markdown--output markdownDocumentation, pasting into reports

Examples:

# JSON for scripting
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset session-list --output json

# CSV for Excel/Sheets
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset framework-summary --output csv

# YAML for reading
go-minitrace discover claude-code --output yaml

Field selection

Use --fields to include only specific columns in the output:

go-minitrace query duckdb \
  --archive-glob '...' \
  --preset session-list \
  --fields id,framework,turns,tools

This reduces output width and is especially useful with table and CSV formats.

Piping to jq

JSON output works well with jq for filtering and transforming:

# Count sessions
go-minitrace discover claude-code --output json | jq length

# Filter to sessions with many tool calls
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset session-list --output json \
  | jq '[.[] | select(.tools > 50)]'

# Extract just the models used
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset session-list --output json \
  | jq '[.[].model] | unique'

# Group by framework
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset session-list --output json \
  | jq 'group_by(.framework) | .[] | {framework: .[0].framework, count: length}'

Piping to Python

For more complex analysis, pipe JSON to a Python script:

go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset session-list --output json \
  | python3 -c "
import json, sys
sessions = json.load(sys.stdin)
total = len(sessions)
avg_turns = sum(s.get('turns', 0) for s in sessions) / max(total, 1)
print(f'{total} sessions, avg {avg_turns:.1f} turns')
"

CSV to spreadsheet workflows

Export data for spreadsheet analysis:

# Full session list
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset session-list --output csv > sessions.csv

# Framework summary
go-minitrace query duckdb --archive-glob '...' --preset framework-summary --output csv > summary.csv

Open the CSV directly in your spreadsheet application, or import it for charts and pivot tables.

Scripting the full pipeline

Combine discover, convert, and query in a shell script:

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

OUTDIR="./analysis-$(date +%Y%m%d)"

echo "Discovering..."
COUNT=$(go-minitrace discover claude-code --output json | jq length)
echo "Found $COUNT sessions"

echo "Converting..."
go-minitrace convert claude-code --output-dir "$OUTDIR"

echo "Summary:"
go-minitrace query duckdb \
  --archive-glob "$OUTDIR/active/*/*.minitrace.json" \
  --preset framework-summary

echo "Exporting..."
go-minitrace query duckdb \
  --archive-glob "$OUTDIR/active/*/*.minitrace.json" \
  --preset session-list --output csv > "$OUTDIR/sessions.csv"

echo "Done. CSV at $OUTDIR/sessions.csv"

The manifest file

After conversion, the root manifest.json contains aggregate statistics:

cat ./output/manifest.json | jq '.statistics'

Output includes:

  • total_sessions — total number of converted sessions
  • by_profile — breakdown by profile (organic, synthetic)
  • by_quality — breakdown by quality tier (A, B, C)
  • by_classification — breakdown by classification
  • date_range — earliest and latest session timestamps

Period manifests under active/YYYY-MM/manifest.json list every session in that month with key metadata.

See also

  • go-minitrace help query-commands — query flags and modes
  • go-minitrace help getting-started — tutorial using these output features