2 Dec 2025
My Contribution to TOON
Mateo Lafalce - Blog
A few weeks ago, I opened an issue to formalize why TOON is superior to JSON. Up until then, we were relying solely on benchmarks and raw percentages to make the case.
As a result of this work, we now have formal documentation for the format, and a preprint on the topic has also been published.
It was a pleasure working with Johann Schopplich, and the feedback was excellent. His project will undoubtedly help the industry save millions of dollars in token usage optimization.
It's a pleasure to contribute to this shift by offering the critical formalization needed to show that TOON isn't just subjectively good, it objectively outperforms JSON in certain scenarios.
What's Next?
As I mentioned on my X account, from my point of view, the TOON format shouldn't be utilized just like JSON (constructing data structures in .toon format to send to the LLM).
I believe TOON is a real game changer when used as an intermediary between the IDE/chat and the LLM. That hasn't been implemented yet, but it is undoubtedly the next step toward the project's mass adoption.
There will surely be news regarding this in the coming weeks :)
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