[Feature] - JSON Output

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

No - my feature request is not related to a problem.

Describe the solution you'd like

Something I have always figured would be a benefit to openSeaChest, is a global "JSON" output format.

openSeaChest provides great data, and in many cases, data that other tools does not provide.

Please consider implementing an output format for openSeaChest in the JSON format.

--outputFormat=json

Describe alternatives you've considered

Tools like smartmontools provide a JSON output format for their toolkit - hdsentinel for Linux provides an XML output - which could be another alternative output format.

Additional context

No further additional context. :)

[nickhayhurstdev]

Hey @vonericsen

Hope you are well.

Is JSON this available for any testing? Happy to support on testing here! 👍

Thanks.

[vonericsen]

@nickhayhurstdev,

I'm doing well and I hope you are too!

JSON support is in progress. #232 is part of integrating that support. #231 is another part of pulling in JSON output.
We've been working through some issues with the json-c library and assessing the CI jobs.
I ended up forking it and submitting some pull requests back to the main project which resolve some of the issues.

One issue we are hitting and trying to decide what to do with is in regards to the makefiles we still preserve. Those builds fail in the CI and we do not know why (they work locally, just not in the CI). We do have some need to maintain them since we occasionally need to support something more rare like AIX or ESXI which don't have meson targets or the ability to build with meson.
Most likely we'll implement some kind of flag to turn support on or off for now with it defaulting to on for meson based builds.

I want to get JSON support completed for our next release....no exact timeline yet, but before the end of the year is the target that I have in mind.

@vonericsen

This is all sounding great (minus the CI issues!) - keen to hear more of this when ready - do give me a shout or ping me in this ticket if you get chance, and I would be glad to test the feature out when it is ready.

Thanks

[sharma-nidhi]

@nickhayhurst-interact ,

Here is the link for JSON-format output feature branch - https://github.com/Seagate/openSeaChest/tree/feature/JSON_Format
This code is build with everything except Windows-Clang.

You can try to pull the code and build with below flags to enable JSON formatted output-

1. meson - add "-Djson_outputformat=true"
2. gcc makefile - add "JSONOUTPUTSUPPORT=1"

Here is how it runs -
./openseachest_SMART -d <devicehandle> --smartAttributes --json {no need to add raw|hybrid|analyzed anymore)
./openseachest_Basic -d <devicehandle> -i --json

We have done this for deviceinfo, SMART, device_statistics, FARM, scsi_defect_list for now. Add basically you need to add --json commandline option to get JSON formatted output for any command.
Please let us know if there's anything else that we should be adding in this.

[vonericsen]

@nickhayhurst-interact,

My earlier comment was trying to get this out before end of 2025, but we've just been swamped with too much to get it all done in that timeframe, but after talking with Nidhi about how to resolve this Windows-Clang issue, we are in agreement that we can get a release in the new year, Jan 2026.

Do give this a test and let us know what you like/don't like/want to see next, etc.

Hey both,

Thanks for sharing this - I was able to download and build the branch - and I saw the expected JSON output 👍

Looks good - only thing to note - is when run with -i -d /dev/sdX - the banner prints by default which could break a parser attempting to use this output.

Of course, we could run with --noBanner - however, there is still an initial print of the device information before the JSON is printed out. This cold easily be trimmed of course. 👍

Example with No Banner

/dev/sg0 - SAMSUNG MZ7TY256HDHP-000L7 - REDACTED - MAT03L6Q - ATA
{
  "Utility Information":{
    "Utility Name":"openSeaChest_Basics",
    "Build Version":"3.7.3",
    "Build Date":"Dec 19 2025",
    "Run as Date":"20251219T181955",
    "Device Info JSON Version":"1.0.0"
  },
  "Drive Information":{
    "Model Name":"SAMSUNG MZ7TY256HDHP-000L7",
    "Serial Number":"REDACTED",
    "Firmware Version":"MAT03L6Q"
  },
  "Device Detailed Information":{
    "Model Number":"SAMSUNG MZ7TY256HDHP-000L7",
    "Serial Number":"REDACTED",
    "Firmware Revision":"MAT03L6Q",
    "World Wide Name":"5002538D00000000",
    "Drive Capacity (GB/GiB)":"256.06/238.47",
    "Native Drive Capacity (GB/GiB)":"256.06/238.47",
    "Temperature Data":{
      "Current Temperature (C)":"23",
      "Highest Temperature (C)":"68",
      "Lowest Temperature (C)":"18"
    },
    "Power On Time":" 226 days 16 hours",
    "Power On Hours":"5440.00",
    "MaxLBA":"500118191",
    "Native MaxLBA":500118191,
    "Logical Sector Size (B)":"512",
    "Physical Sector Size (B)":"512",
    "Sector Alignment":"0",
    "Rotation Rate (RPM)":"SSD",
    "Form Factor":"2.5\"",
    "Last DST information":{
      "Time since last DST (hours)":"18.00",
      "DST Status/Result":"0x0",
      "DST Test run":"0x1"
    },
    "Long Drive Self Test Time":" 1 hour 25 minutes",
    "Interface speed":{
      "Max Speed (Gb/s)":"6.0",
      "Negotiated Speed (Gb/s)":"6.0"
    },
    "Annualized Workload Rate (TB/yr)":"Not Reported",
    "Total Bytes Read (B)":"Not Reported",
    "Total Bytes Written (B)":"Not Reported",
    "Encryption Support":"Self Encrypting",
    "Cache Size (MiB)":"Not Reported",
    "Percentage Used Endurance Indicator (%)":"Not Reported",
    "Read Look-Ahead":"Enabled",
    "Write Cache":"Enabled",
    "SMART Status":"Good",
    "ATA Security Information":[
      "Supported"
    ],
    "Firmware Download Support":[
      "Full",
      "Segmented",
      "DMA"
    ],
    "Specifications Supported":[
      "ACS-2",
      "ATA8-ACS",
      "ATA/ATAPI-7",
      "ATA/ATAPI-6",
      "ATA/ATAPI-5",
      "ATA/ATAPI-4",
      "ATA-3",
      "ATA-2",
      "ATA8-ACS (Revision 4C)",
      "SATA 3.1",
      "SATA 3.0",
      "SATA 2.6",
      "SATA 2.5",
      "SATA II: Extensions",
      "SATA 1.0a",
      "ATA8-AST"
    ],
    "Features Supported":[
      "Read/Write Multiple",
      "SATA NCQ [QD=32]",
      "SATA Device Sleep",
      "SATA NCQ Autosense",
      "SATA Software Settings Preservation [Enabled]",
      "SATA Hardware Feature Control [Enabled]",
      "SATA Device Initiated Power Management",
      "HPA",
      "Power Management",
      "Security",
      "SMART [Enabled]",
      "DCO",
      "48bit Address",
      "Set Max Security Extension",
      "GPL",
      "SMART Self-Test",
      "SMART Error Logging",
      "Write-Read-Verify",
      "TRIM",
      "SCT Write Same",
      "SCT Error Recovery Control",
      "SCT Feature Control",
      "SCT Data Tables",
      "Host Logging",
      "TCG"
    ],
    "Adapter Information":{
      "Adapter Type":"PCI",
      "Vendor ID":"1000h",
      "Product ID":"0072h",
      "Revision":"0002h"
    }
  }
}

/dev/sg0 - SAMSUNG MZ7TY256HDHP-000L7 - REDACTED - MAT03L6Q - ATA

This is printed just before the JSON.

Happy to try further testing and other areas for testing too.

Thanks for your efforts so far on this both!

Nick

[vonericsen]

Thanks for the quick feedback!
We will work on those issues.

It can be a bit of a game of whack-a-mole finding all these little things, but we'll keep working on it!

Absolutely no worries!

It's just a quick bit of feedback - but otherwise, this is looking particularly useful.

I think that something else that could be added into the -i flag - could be the Sanitize/Security Erase/Format NVM specific command(s) support. I know the utility prints "Sanitize" into the supported features on drives that support it - but perhaps adding in "Sanitize Crypto Erase", "Sanitize Block Erase" - where supported into the features could be useful. Saves another command being triggered. 👍

Just a thought haha!

I can imagine it's as you've described - whack-a-mole!

Let me know if I can support with more testing.

Thanks!

Nick

[vonericsen]

I will think about that for a bit, but overall, I like the idea, and it fits nicely with other internal tools we are working on.

One thing I have tried to avoid is making the -i too long since it has grown a lot over time.

Would something like Sanitize [Overwrite, Crypto] in the features list work?
I've done that with a few other things to show whether a given feature is enabled or not and maybe this would be a good way to expand it without making the total output longer (going horizontal versus vertical...less important in JSON, but something I need to think about for human readable output).

One example of another way we did this was with Trim/Unmap support.
Those will output something like UNMAP [Deterministic, Zeros] or Trim [Deterministic, Zeros] or UNMAP [Zeros] (and a few other possible outputs in unmap depending on the support...vendor pattern, specific provisioning pattern, etc).

[fthobe]

@vonericsen in Europe the DPP (Device Passport) will become legally mandatory next year documenting the lifecycle actions of a device. Can you provide me with a sample output? On schema.org some work is ongoing to align this output with the fields required by the GS1 DPP standard applicable in Europe? @kevinbouti is extensively working on this over at schema.

I saw Seagate is a major sponsor of Circular Drives, I think it would actually be nice to have some discussion happening over there regarding DPP.