UiPath CLI - Output formats

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UiPath CLI user guide

Output formats

Output formats in UiPath CLI, covering the structured envelope emitted by every command in JSON, table, YAML, and plain renderings.

Every uip command emits a single structured envelope on stdout. The envelope has the same schema whether you are reading it in a terminal, feeding it into jq, or consuming it from a pipeline. Five formats render that envelope differently: json (the default), table, yaml, plain, and markdown. Switch between them with --output and filter with --output-filter.

The envelope

Success:

{
  "Result": "Success",
  "Code": "FolderList",
  "Data": [
    {
      "Key": "9f2b3c…-…",
      "Name": "Shared",
      "Path": "Shared",
      "Type": "Standard"
    }
  ]
}
{
  "Result": "Success",
  "Code": "FolderList",
  "Data": [
    {
      "Key": "9f2b3c…-…",
      "Name": "Shared",
      "Path": "Shared",
      "Type": "Standard"
    }
  ]
}

Failure:

{
  "Result": "ValidationError",
  "Message": "Unknown option '--folder-pth'. Did you mean '--folder-path'?",
  "Instructions": "Run 'uip or folders list --help' to see valid options.",
  "ErrorCode": "invalid_argument",
  "Retry": "RetryWillNotFix",
  "Log": "/var/log/uip/2026-04-24.log"
}
{
  "Result": "ValidationError",
  "Message": "Unknown option '--folder-pth'. Did you mean '--folder-path'?",
  "Instructions": "Run 'uip or folders list --help' to see valid options.",
  "ErrorCode": "invalid_argument",
  "Retry": "RetryWillNotFix",
  "Log": "/var/log/uip/2026-04-24.log"
}

Fields:

Result — the outcome category. Success on success; Failure, ConfigError, AuthenticationError, ValidationError, or TimeoutError on failure. Maps directly to the exit code.
Code — the command-specific success identifier. Stable within a MAJOR version (FolderList, SolutionPack, JobStarted, SkillsInstall, etc.).
Data — the command's payload. Shape is command-specific; see each command's reference page for the exact fields.
Message, Instructions — present on failure. Message is the human-readable error; Instructions tells the user or operator what to do.
ErrorCode — present on every failure. A stable, command-independent taxonomy for scripts that need finer-grained branching than the exit code alone: invalid_argument, authentication_required, permission_denied, local_permission_denied, not_found, rate_limited, network_error, timeout, server_error, method_not_allowed, configuration_error, unknown_error.
Retry — present on every failure. Whether retrying is worth it, and how soon: RetryWillNotFix, RetryLater, RetryAfter1Second, RetryAfter10Seconds, RetryAfter30Seconds, RetryAfter60Seconds.
Context — optional failure details (HTTP status, request ID, etc.).
Log — when --log-file is active, the path to the log file, included in every envelope.

ErrorCode and Retry are populated automatically on every failure, even when a command doesn't set them explicitly — see Scripting patterns — retrying on Retry for how to branch on them instead of parsing Message text.

The envelope itself is stable across MINOR versions. The shape of Data is command-specific and can evolve — see Versioning and stability.

The five formats

json (default)

uip or folders list
uip or folders list

{
  "Result": "Success",
  "Code": "FolderList",
  "Data": [
    { "Key": "9f2b3c…", "Name": "Shared", "Path": "Shared", "Type": "Standard" },
    { "Key": "a4b8f1…", "Name": "Finance", "Path": "Finance", "Type": "Standard" }
  ]
}
{
  "Result": "Success",
  "Code": "FolderList",
  "Data": [
    { "Key": "9f2b3c…", "Name": "Shared", "Path": "Shared", "Type": "Standard" },
    { "Key": "a4b8f1…", "Name": "Finance", "Path": "Finance", "Type": "Standard" }
  ]
}

Default because it is parseable by any JSON consumer (jq, --output-filter, scripts, AI agents) and deterministic across versions. In a terminal it reads fine; for a pretty-printed table, switch to --output table.

table

uip or folders list --output table
uip or folders list --output table

Key         Name       Path      Type
9f2b3c…     Shared     Shared    Standard
a4b8f1…     Finance    Finance   Standard
Key         Name       Path      Type
9f2b3c…     Shared     Shared    Standard
a4b8f1…     Finance    Finance   Standard

Colored and bordered in a real terminal (colors are suppressed when stdout is not a TTY). Each command picks the columns it considers most useful for the table view — not every field in Data is necessarily shown. For the complete field set, use JSON or YAML.

Do not parse the table output. Column widths, borders, and even the set of columns can change between MINOR versions. It is for human reading only.

yaml

uip or folders list --output yaml
uip or folders list --output yaml

Result: Success
Code: FolderList
Data:
  - Key: 9f2b3c…
    Name: Shared
    Path: Shared
    Type: Standard
  - Key: a4b8f1…
    Name: Finance
    Path: Finance
    Type: Standard
Result: Success
Code: FolderList
Data:
  - Key: 9f2b3c…
    Name: Shared
    Path: Shared
    Type: Standard
  - Key: a4b8f1…
    Name: Finance
    Path: Finance
    Type: Standard

A literal YAML serialization of the same envelope as json. Useful if your tooling prefers YAML (Ansible, Kubernetes manifests, some CI platforms) or if you are comparing two runs by eye and find YAML easier to scan.

plain

uip or folders list --output plain
uip or folders list --output plain

Data[0].Key=9f2b3c…
Data[0].Name=Shared
Data[0].Path=Shared
Data[0].Type=Standard
Data[1].Key=a4b8f1…
Data[1].Name=Finance
Data[1].Path=Finance
Data[1].Type=Standard
Data[0].Key=9f2b3c…
Data[0].Name=Shared
Data[0].Path=Shared
Data[0].Type=Standard
Data[1].Key=a4b8f1…
Data[1].Name=Finance
Data[1].Path=Finance
Data[1].Type=Standard

One path=value per line. The path is a dot-notation JMESPath-like key into the envelope. Convenient for shell loops on machines that don't have jq:

uip or folders list --output plain | grep -E '\.Name=' | cut -d= -f2
uip or folders list --output plain | grep -E '\.Name=' | cut -d= -f2

markdown

uip or folders list --output markdown
uip or folders list --output markdown

| Key | Name | Path | Type |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 9f2b3c… | Shared | Shared | Standard |
| a4b8f1… | Finance | Finance | Standard |
| Key | Name | Path | Type |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 9f2b3c… | Shared | Shared | Standard |
| a4b8f1… | Finance | Finance | Standard |

Renders the envelope as GitHub-flavored markdown — a table for a list of records, or **key:** value lines and nested headed sections for a single record. Intended for an agent or chat surface reading uip output through a shell, not for a human terminal session: a command that already returns prose (for example uip rpa validate) passes it through verbatim instead of as an escaped JSON string. On failure, the format renders **Failed:** <Message> followed by any Data and Instructions.

Filtering with --output-filter

--output-filter accepts a JMESPath expression. It runs on the full envelope before formatting, so the filter output inherits whichever format --output produces.

Some common patterns:

# just the Data array
uip or folders list --output-filter "Data"

# project specific fields
uip or folders list --output-filter "Data[*].{name: Name, path: Path}"

# count
uip or folders list --output-filter "length(Data)"

# first match
uip or folders list --all --name Shared --output-filter "Data[0]"

# flat list of names
uip or folders list --output-filter "Data[*].Name" --output plain
# just the Data array
uip or folders list --output-filter "Data"

# project specific fields
uip or folders list --output-filter "Data[*].{name: Name, path: Path}"

# count
uip or folders list --output-filter "length(Data)"

# first match
uip or folders list --all --name Shared --output-filter "Data[0]"

# flat list of names
uip or folders list --output-filter "Data[*].Name" --output plain

A malformed expression exits with ValidationError (exit code 3) before the command runs, so a typo does not waste an API call. See Global options — --output-filter for the full flag.

Stream separation

--output controls stdout only. Every other form of output goes to stderr regardless of format:

Log lines (what --log-level controls).
Progress indicators (spinners, download bars during tool auto-install).
Error text rendered by the host when it detects an invalid flag.

This means a pipeline can capture clean output to a file without losing diagnostics:

uip or folders list > folders.json 2> uip.log
uip or folders list > folders.json 2> uip.log

In CI, redirect them separately to make logs greppable without needing to strip ANSI or progress artifacts from the data stream.

Colors and TTY detection

The table format emits ANSI color codes when stdout is an interactive terminal (isTTY). When you pipe to a file or to another process, or run in a CI runner that disables TTY, table output is plain text without escape codes by default.

Two environment variables override TTY auto-detection:

Variable	Effect
`NO_COLOR`	Any value forces color off, even on a TTY.
`FORCE_COLOR`	Forces color on, even when stdout is not a TTY — useful when a CI log viewer renders ANSI codes and you want the colored table anyway.

Other formats (json, yaml, plain) never emit colors.

Overriding the default format

--output defaults to json when omitted. Set UIP_DEFAULT_OUTPUT to change that default for the current shell without passing --output on every command:

export UIP_DEFAULT_OUTPUT=table
uip tools list                  # → table

uip tools list --output yaml   # --output still wins → yaml
export UIP_DEFAULT_OUTPUT=table
uip tools list                  # → table

uip tools list --output yaml   # --output still wins → yaml

Accepts table, json, yaml, plain, or markdown; an invalid value is ignored and the built-in json default is kept.

Choosing a format

Use case	Recommended format
Reading in a terminal	`--output table`
Scripting (`jq`, shell pipelines)	`--output json` (default)
Ansible / Kubernetes integration	`--output yaml`
`grep`-friendly flat output without `jq`	`--output plain`
AI coding agents	`--output json` (default) with `--output-filter` for focused extraction, or `--output markdown` for a chat-readable rendering
CI pipelines that pass values between steps	`--output json` with `--output-filter`, or `--output plain` for simple cases

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PREVIOUSConfiguration (uipath.config.json)

NEXTScripting patterns

The envelope​

The five formats​

json (default)​

table​

yaml​

plain​

markdown​

Filtering with --output-filter​

Stream separation​

Colors and TTY detection​

Overriding the default format​

Choosing a format​

See also​