When it comes to encoding JSON, you don't have to represent everything. For example, you can always do: object [ "foo" .= object [ "bar" .= [ "Yum", "Waffles!"

When it comes to encoding JSON, you don't have to represent everything. For example, you can always do: object [ "foo" .= object [ "bar" .= [ "Yum", "Waffles!"] ] ] Which will give you {"foo": {"bar": ["Yum", "Waffles!"]}}. You can do traversals when decoding too: tasty :: JSON -> Parser [String] tasty json = json .: "foo" >>= (.: "bar") You can also do similar things with lens-aeson: tasty json = json & key "foo" . key "bar" . _Array Though I'm less familiar with that, and you won't be inside the Parser monad.