JSON to YAML

What is JSON to YAML conversion?

YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human-friendly data serialization format commonly used for configuration files. This tool converts JSON objects into clean YAML and vice versa, preserving data types, nested structures, and arrays. All processing happens client-side.

Two ways to write the same data

JSON and YAML are both formats for structured data, and any JSON document can be expressed as YAML and vice versa. YAML uses indentation instead of braces and brackets, and it drops most quotes and commas, which makes it easier for people to read and edit by hand — one reason it dominates configuration files for tools like Docker, Kubernetes, and CI pipelines.

Converting between them lets you take data an API returns as JSON and drop it into a YAML config, or turn a hand-written YAML file into JSON your code can parse directly.

What changes and what stays the same

The data is identical after conversion — the same keys, values, arrays, and nesting — only the syntax differs. JSON objects become YAML mappings, JSON arrays become YAML sequences, and nesting that JSON shows with braces YAML shows with indentation. Both directions are supported so you can round-trip a document freely.

YAML gotchas to watch for

YAML infers types, which is convenient but occasionally surprising: a value like yes or no can be read as a boolean, and a leading zero can be read as a number. When a string could be misread, quote it. Converting from JSON, which is explicit about types, is a reliable way to produce correct YAML.

How to convert between JSON and YAML

1. 1Paste your document. Paste JSON to convert to YAML, or YAML to convert to JSON.
2. 2Choose a direction. Select JSON to YAML or YAML to JSON depending on your input.
3. 3Copy the result. Copy the converted document into your config file or code.

Examples

{"name":"app","ports":[80,443],"debug":false}

name: app
ports:
  - 80
  - 443
debug: false

name: app
replicas: 3

{
  "name": "app",
  "replicas": 3
}

JSON and YAML equivalents

How the two syntaxes line up.

Frequently asked questions