# Output Formatting

URL: /docs/usage/output/
Section: usage
Tags: output, formatting, json, table

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Milo formats command return values based on the --format flag. Every command registered with @cli.command automatically supports --format plain|json|table. Formats Plain (default) Human-readable output. Dicts show aligned key-value pairs, lists show one item per line: @cli.command("info", description="Show info") def info() -> dict: return {"name": "myapp", "version": "1.0.0", "status": "healthy"} $ myapp info name myapp version 1.0.0 status healthy JSON Structured JSON output for piping to other tools: $ myapp info --format json { "name": "myapp", "version": "1.0.0", "status": "healthy" } Table Tabular output for lists of dicts. Uses kida's table filter when available, with a simple column-aligned fallback: @cli.command("list", description="List items") def list_items() -> list[dict]: return [ {"id": 1, "name": "Alpha", "status": "active"}, {"id": 2, "name": "Beta", "status": "pending"}, ] $ myapp list --format table id name status -- ----- ------- 1 Alpha active 2 Beta pending Template Render through a kida template: from milo import format_output output = format_output(data, fmt="template", template="report.kida") Using format_output directly For custom formatting outside the CLI dispatcher: from milo import format_output text = format_output({"key": "value"}, fmt="json") write_output write_output formats and writes to stdout in one call: from milo import write_output write_output(data, fmt="table") This is what the CLI dispatcher calls after each command handler returns.

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Metadata:
- Author: lbliii
- Word Count: 199
- Reading Time: 1 minutes