if condition always false despite the condition being true upon manual execution

I wish to search for a string mongo and not starting with comment i.e # in a file. homedir=ls -d ~ echo "$homedir" if [[ cat $homedir/2_need_softwares.txt | grep -v '^#' | grep -iq mongo ]]; then echo "Installing mongodb" else echo "skipping mongo" fi Output: /root skipping mongo I'm on centos 9 $ uname -a Linux DKERP 5.14.0-134.el9.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Jul 21 12:57:06 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux As you see the if statement is failing and hence the else gets executed. But when I run the if condition manually it shows success $ cat /root/2_need_softwares.txt | grep -v '^#' | grep -iq mongo $ echo $? 0 $ grep mongo /root/2_need_softwares.txt mongo Can you please suggest what is wrong with my if condition? I tried the below as well: 1. if [[ $(cat $homedir/2_need_softwares.txt | grep -v '^#' | grep -iq mongo) ]]; then 2. if [[ $("cat $homedir/2_need_softwares.txt | grep -v '^#' | grep -iq mongo") ]]; then This is for bash and POSIX is preferred.