The data format used for the STR files is HOCON (Human Optimised Config Notation) a relaxed variant of JSON, designed for human/manual editing and supporting comments.
For all scripting needs, the topo command must be used, it has many different options to ”query” the contents of the topology registry, to return subsets of information and in strict JSON format if desired.
For further information about the HOCON format, visit the official GitHub web site.