YAML to JSON Converter

YAML to JSON Converter parses a YAML document and emits the equivalent JSON. Paste a Kubernetes manifest, a Docker Compose file, a GitHub Actions workflow, or an Ansible playbook, and you get back formatted JSON with the same structure - mappings become objects, sequences become arrays, and scalars are resolved to strings, numbers, booleans, or null according to the YAML core schema.

The parser handles the parts of YAML that trip up naive converters. Anchors and aliases are resolved, so a `*defaults` reference expands into the value it points at. Merge keys (`<<: *base`) are flattened into the target mapping, with explicit keys taking precedence as the spec requires. Literal (`|`) and folded (`>`) block scalars keep or fold their newlines correctly, including the strip and keep chomping indicators. Multi-document streams separated by `---` come out as a JSON array of documents.

A short Compose-style file shows what this YAML to JSON converter online does with shared blocks. Given base: &base with image: node:20 and restart: always under it, then web: with <<: *base and restart: "no", the output has two objects. base keeps both keys, and web becomes {"image": "node:20", "restart": "no"}: the merge copied image across, and the key written in web won over the merged restart. The quoted "no" stays a string, and so would an unquoted no, because this converter follows YAML 1.2 rules.

Everything runs in your browser. Config files routinely carry internal hostnames, cluster names, image registries, and occasionally a secret someone forgot to move into a vault, so nothing you paste is uploaded, logged, or stored. You can also sort keys alphabetically for easier diffing, choose 2-space, 4-space, or minified output, and keep every plain scalar as a string when your downstream consumer is strict about types.

The conversion resolves the parts of YAML that JSON has no equivalent for, and it is worth knowing what happens to each. Anchors and aliases are expanded, so a block referenced in five places becomes five copies in the JSON rather than five references, and the output can be substantially larger than the input. Merge keys are applied and disappear. Comments are dropped entirely, since JSON has nowhere to put them. Multi-document streams separated by three dashes become an array, because JSON has no concept of several documents in one file. Dates are the one to watch: YAML parses an unquoted date into a timestamp type, and JSON has no date type, so it arrives as a string whose exact format depends on how it was written.