JSONFormatting.org

Data Converter

JSON ↔ YAML Converter

Convert JSON to YAML for Kubernetes manifests and CI/CD configs, or turn YAML back into JSON.

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YAML Output
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Convert JSON to YAML and YAML to JSON

YAML is the format of choice for Kubernetes manifests, Docker Compose files, GitHub Actions workflows, Ansible playbooks, and countless other configuration files — while JSON remains the default for APIs and JavaScript-native tooling. This tool converts cleanly between the two so you don't have to hand-edit indentation-sensitive YAML from scratch.

What's supported

  • Block-style mappings and sequences (the common, indentation-based YAML style used in almost every real config file).
  • Flow-style collections, e.g. tags: [a, b, c] and {key: value}.
  • Quoted and unquoted scalars, numbers, booleans (true/false/yes/no), and null/~.
  • Comments (#) when converting YAML → JSON — they're simply ignored, as they have no JSON equivalent.
  • Nested objects and lists of objects, including deeply nested structures.

This parser covers the YAML syntax used in the vast majority of real-world config files. It does not support advanced YAML features like anchors & aliases (&anchor / *ref), multi-document files (--- separators), or block scalar literals (| and >). For files using those features, a language-specific YAML library is more reliable.

Typical use cases

  • Kubernetes & DevOps: Draft a manifest as JSON (easier to generate programmatically) and convert it to YAML before applying it.
  • CI/CD configuration: Convert a GitHub Actions or GitLab CI YAML file to JSON to process it with a script.
  • API responses in config form: Turn a JSON API response into a readable YAML snippet for documentation.
  • Migrating between tools: Some tools accept only JSON, others only YAML — convert on the fly instead of retyping by hand.

For a deeper look at when to reach for each format, see YAML vs JSON: When to Use Which.

Frequently Asked Questions

Not for multi-document files separated by ---. Convert one document at a time by splitting the file first.
No — JSON has no concept of comments, so there's nothing to carry over. Comments in an input YAML file are simply dropped when converting YAML → JSON, since JSON can't represent them either.
That's correct YAML behavior — a value like 1.4.2 doesn't match YAML's number syntax, so both this tool and standard YAML libraries treat it as a plain string (common for version numbers).
Yes, as long as the file uses standard block-style YAML without anchors, aliases, or multi-document separators, which covers most real-world Compose and Actions files.
No. It implements the subset of YAML used in the overwhelming majority of configuration files. For strict spec compliance in production code, use a dedicated YAML library in your language of choice.