Configcompare

diff <(grep -v '^[[:space:]]*"version"' file1.json) \ <(grep -v '^[[:space:]]*"version"' file2.json) For deeply nested configs, use git diff --no-index with color:

jq 'del(.metadata.generated, .timestamp)' file1.json configcompare

#!/bin/bash # Usage: configcompare file1.json file2.json # configcompare file1.yaml file2.yaml FILE1=$1 FILE2=$2 EXT="$FILE1##*." diff &lt;(grep -v '^[[:space:]]*"version"' file1

xmllint --format --c14n file1.xml > file1_normalized.xml Now compare the normalized files: (grep -v '^[[:space:]]*"version"' file1.json) \ &lt

# Using jq to show only differing paths diff <(jq -S . file1.json) <(jq -S . file2.json) | grep '^[<>]' | sed 's/^[<>] //' Often you want to ignore timestamps, versions, or auto-generated IDs.

diff -u file1_normalized.json file2_normalized.json Better yet, use a structural diff tool that understands paths: