idx-cli/web/src/content/docs/cli/output.md

title	description
Output and exit codes	Tables, JSON, errors and exit codes; the contract scripts and agents rely on.

Formats

-o	Prints
auto (default)	a table when stdout is a terminal, compact JSON otherwise
table	a table
json	one JSON document
jsonl	one JSON value per line (one per array item)

Set the default with IDX_OUTPUT or general.output. Colour is off whenever stdout is not a terminal, and with --no-color.

The contract

• stdout carries only data; warnings, progress and errors go to stderr.

• On failure stdout is empty.

• In JSON modes an error is one JSON object on stderr:

  {"error":true,"code":"INVALIDINPUT","message":"invalid input: invalid ticker symbol '../x'"}
  

Exit codes

Exit	Meaning	What to do
0	success
2	invalid input or config	fix the command
3	not found, no data, or no cached data offline	check the ticker or name; go online
4	upstream unavailable	retry later
5	unsupported	use another command or provider
1	anything else	read the message

Pipes

# names and prices
idx stocks quote BBCA BBRI | jq -r '.[] | "\(.symbol) \(.price)"'

# the last five daily closes
idx -o jsonl stocks history BBCA --period 1y | tail -5

# symbols from stdin
idx stocks screen --filter high-dividend | jq -r '.[].symbol' | idx stocks compare -

stocks quote and stocks compare read symbols from stdin when given -, separated by whitespace or commas.