json-tools is a small Visual Studio Code extension that helps you discover and navigate JSON paths inside a JSON (or JSONC) document and copy the path for the value under the cursor.
It provides two lightweight, editor-focused commands:
"Go to JSON Path" — open a Quick Pick of discovered JSON paths (with short previews) and jump to the selected value in the document.
"Copy JSON Path" — compute the JSON path for the value at the current cursor position and copy a dot/bracket-style path to the clipboard.
Features
Discover all object and array paths in the current JSON document and preview values in-place.
Quick filtering and fuzzy search in the Quick Pick; you can also paste a path directly into the Quick Pick to jump to it.
Copy a safe dot/bracket path representation for the value at the cursor (handles identifiers and quoted keys).
Works with JSON and JSON with comments (uses jsonc-parser) and resolves paths with the same parsed tree.
Commands
The extension contributes the following commands (also available on the editor context menu when the language is json):
json-tools.goToJsonPath — "Go to JSON Path"
json-tools.copyJsonPath — "Copy JSON Path"
You can run them from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) or find them in the editor context menu when editing JSON files.
How to use
Open a JSON or JSONC file in the editor.
To navigate visually: right-click anywhere in the editor or open the Command Palette and choose "Go to JSON Path". A Quick Pick will appear showing discovered paths and a short preview of the value. Type to filter or paste a path and press Enter to jump to it.
To copy a path: place the cursor on or inside a value (key, object, array element) and run the "Copy JSON Path" command. The dot/bracket-style path will be copied to your clipboard and a confirmation message shown.
Example copied paths:
top-level identifier: myKey
nested property: parent.child.name
array element: items[0].name
quoted key: ['weird-key'].value
Notes:
The "Go to JSON Path" Quick Pick shows a limited initial set of items for performance. Filtering increases the search set.
The extension uses jsonc-parser to parse the document; if the file is not valid JSON/JSONC the extension may not find paths.
Limitations & edge cases
Malformed JSON: parsing must succeed to collect paths; the commands will report failures in that case.
Very large JSON documents may take longer to collect all paths — the Quick Pick limits and filtering are used to keep the UI responsive.
The path format produced and used by the extension is a dot/bracket path (not necessarily a full JSONPath expression). The Quick Pick accepts typed input and tries to match entries; you can paste JSONPath-like strings but behavior depends on how the path parses to segments.
