Output formats

Query commands take --format text|json|llm:

Format	Use it when	Shape
text	A person is reading	Tables and trees
json	You’re chaining commands or pulling out a field	One JSON document
llm	An agent is reading	One key=value record per line, token-minimal

llm is the smallest. For ix context it is roughly a ninth of the size of the same answer in json. Its wire format is specified in The llm output format.

Set a default once

The format is resolved in this order:

1. The --format flag on the command
2. The IX_FORMAT environment variable
3. format in ~/.ix/config.yaml, set with ix config set format llm
4. text

Set the environment variable or the config key and stop passing the flag. An explicit --format still wins on the one call that needs something else. ix config show tells you when IX_FORMAT is overriding the stored value.

A command that doesn’t implement the configured format keeps its own default. It won’t fail on a format it can’t render.

JSON is compact when piped

--format json prints a single line when stdout isn’t a terminal (a pipe, a command substitution or an agent’s tool call) and indents only when you’re reading it on screen. --pretty forces the indented form.

Trimming output

Flag	Effect
--quiet	Drops section titles, headers and advisory hints. Keeps warnings, errors and the shown=/total=/truncated= fields
--fields name,path,lines	Keeps only those fields on each row, in your order
--limit <n>	Caps the number of results

Confidence

Ix attaches confidence scores to its results. Treat low-confidence answers as leads, not facts, and re-run ix map if the graph may be stale.