JSON Formatted Output Support

Relevant area(s)

• WinGet CLI

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Parent / tracking issue for structured, machine-readable output in WinGet.

To enable automation and consumption by other tools, WinGet commands should be able to emit structured output (e.g. JSON) in addition to the default human-readable tables. Parsing the default console output is brittle; a stable structured format lets scripts and tools consume results reliably.

This issue tracks the overall effort; individual slices are tracked as sub-issues / related work below.

Scope

• A consistent --format json (and potentially other structured formats) across commands that produce output — e.g. list, upgrade, search, show, export.
• A stable, documented schema for each command's structured output.
• Where appropriate, keep the shape of the structured output (field names and structure) aligned with the objects returned by the WinGet PowerShell module, so consumers get a consistent schema across the CLI and the module rather than two divergent shapes.
• Well-defined behavior for empty results and error paths so output stays parseable.

Related work and sub-issues

• In flight: PR #6346 adds --format json for list and upgrade (list-only) output.
• #1753 (closed) — original request for structured format options on list/upgrade; covered by the work above.
• #2030 — richer package information in winget export JSON output (export payload).

Out of scope (separate concerns)

• Output verbosity — how much WinGet prints to the console (tracked in #161).
• Diagnostic log level — a distinct concern from output format.

Updated with GitHub Copilot.

Start with PR #6346 and the related issues #1753 and #2030 to understand which structured-output slices are already covered. Done would require consistent JSON output across the listed commands, documented stable schemas, and parseable empty-result and error behavior.