Output formats

Every read command renders through one formatter, so the same flags work everywhere. Pick a format with -o, or let csdn choose: a table when writing to a terminal, JSONL when piped.

Formats

csdn <command> -o table      # aligned columns for reading
csdn <command> -o jsonl      # one JSON object per line, for piping
csdn <command> -o json       # a single JSON array
csdn <command> -o markdown   # a Markdown table
csdn <command> -o csv        # spreadsheet friendly
csdn <command> -o tsv        # tab-separated
csdn <command> -o url        # just the url field
csdn <command> -o raw        # the record's body field, one per line

Format	Best for
table	Reading on a terminal
jsonl	Piping into another tool, one object at a time
json	Loading a whole result as an array
markdown	Pasting a table into a document
csv / tsv	Spreadsheets and quick column math
url	Feeding URLs into other commands
raw	The record's text body (the content of an article, the text of a comment)

Long text fields are truncated in table output to fit; json, jsonl, csv, and tsv carry the full untruncated value.

Narrowing columns

Keep only the fields you want, by their lowercase JSON key:

csdn hot --fields rank,title,score

--no-header drops the header row in table, csv, and tsv output, which helps when a downstream tool expects bare rows.

Templating rows

For full control over each line, apply a Go text/template. Fields are the JSON keys, capitalised:

csdn hot --template '{{.Rank}} {{.Title}} {{.Score}}'

Why auto-detection helps

Because the default adapts to the destination, the same command reads well by hand and parses cleanly in a pipe:

csdn hot            # a table, because this is a terminal
csdn hot | wc -l    # JSONL, because this is a pipe

You only reach for -o when you want something other than that default.