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YAML to JSON

Convert YAML to JSON instantly. Free online YAML-to-JSON converter — handles nested structures and arrays. No signup, 100% private, browser-based.

Supports simple YAML key-value pairs for browser-only conversion.

How it works

The YAML to JSON Converter parses a YAML document and transforms it into equivalent JSON — preserving data types, nested structures, arrays, and multi-line string values.

YAML is the standard configuration format for Kubernetes manifests, Docker Compose files, GitHub Actions workflows, Ansible playbooks, and many CI/CD pipelines. JSON is the lingua franca of APIs and JavaScript applications. Converting between them is a constant need when working across these domains.

How to use it: paste your YAML. The converter parses it (including multi-document YAML with --- separators), correctly handles YAML's data types (strings, numbers, booleans, null, dates), and produces pretty-printed JSON. Multi-document YAML produces a JSON array of documents.

YAML features handled: block and flow scalars, block and flow sequences (arrays), block and flow mappings (objects), anchors and aliases (* and &), merge keys (<<:), multi-line strings (| literal block, > folded block), explicit type tags (!!int, !!str, !!bool), null values (~ and null), and boolean variants (yes/no, on/off, true/false — all mapped to JSON true/false).

Edge case note: YAML's boolean handling is a common source of bugs. The strings "yes", "no", "on", "off" are valid YAML booleans. This converter follows YAML 1.1 rules (matching most real-world parsers) which treat these as booleans, not strings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it handle YAML anchors and aliases?
Yes. Anchors (&name) and aliases (*name) are resolved — the aliased content is inlined in the JSON output. YAML merge keys (<<:) are also resolved, merging the referenced mapping into the current object.
How are YAML dates handled?
YAML 1.1 treats strings like 2024-01-15 as date values. They are converted to ISO 8601 date strings in JSON. If you need to prevent date conversion, quote the value in YAML: '2024-01-15'.
What happens with YAML boolean values?
YAML 1.1 treats yes, no, on, off, true, false (and their uppercase variants) as booleans. They become JSON true or false. To keep them as strings, quote them in YAML: 'yes'.
Can it convert multi-document YAML files?
Yes. YAML files with multiple documents separated by --- are converted to a JSON array, where each element is the parsed document.