On sops 3.7.3:

Expected

Given an encrypted .env file,

% sops -d secrets.enc.env --output-type json
<command prints secrets in the env file, but in a JSON object container instead>

Actual

% sops -d secrets.enc.env --output-type json
<command behaves as though `--output-type` was not given

Workaround

Moving --output-type json in front of -d <path> does work:

% sops --output-type json -d secrets.enc.env
<expected output as described above>

Not sure if this is expected behavior and thus a docs gap, or a bug. I'd guess the latter since sops --help says that everything is just a "global option" with no relative order required for them to work.