Debugging YAML configs often means squinting at raw nested data. yq combined with column can display it as a clean table instead.

Install yq if not already installed.

Example YAML file (data.yaml):

items:
  - name: Alice
    email: alice@example.com
  - name: Bob
    email: bob@example.com

Quick one-liner:

yq -r '.items[] | [.name, .email] | @tsv' data.yaml | column -s $'\t' -t

Same command, step by step:

yq -r '
  .items[]           # loop through each item in the list
  | [.name, .email]  # select the name and email fields
  | @tsv             # format as tab-separated values
' data.yaml | column -t  # pipe to column for neat table view

Output:

Alice  alice@example.com
Bob    bob@example.com

Works well for any YAML with a consistent list structure. Just adjust the field names in the yq expression to match the data.