> I hate that the jq command is always some indecipherable string in the middle of the script
It might be worthwhile to just learn how jq works. At the end of the day, you need to learn some language to parse json. I hate DSLs too, but I cannot think of anything as useful and concise as jq.
> but that ends up being at least as nasty as the JQ script
That's exaxtly why jq is so nice. Nice alternatives just don't exist
I really like jq, but I think there is at least one nice alternative to it: jet [1].
It is also a single executable, written in clojure and fast. Among other niceties, you don't have to learn any DSL in this case -- at least not if you already know clojure!