Fast TOON (Token-Oriented Object Notation) encoder for Python, Rust, and CLI.
8× faster than toons, 2.7× faster than the official TS SDK, byte-identical output.
Measured on a 50-doc payload (7480 bytes JSON → 4012 bytes TOON):
| Encoder | Time | vs etoon |
|---|---|---|
| etoon (Rust, native) | 11.9 μs | 1.00× |
| etoon (Python, PyO3) | 15.4 μs | 1.27× |
| @toon-format/toon (TS SDK) | 35.6 μs | 2.94× |
| py-rtoon | 85.9 μs | 7.10× |
| toons | 106.4 μs | 8.79× |
CLI via stdin pipe (Claude / Bash workflows):
| CLI | Per call | Relative |
|---|---|---|
| etoon | 0.43 ms | 1.00× |
| official toon | 50.7 ms | 118× slower |
Auto-detect mode (v0.2.0+) — handles JSON, mixed log, and plain text:
| Input | Size | Per call |
|---|---|---|
| Pure JSON (1000 objects) | 120KB | 0.73 ms |
| Mixed log (5K JSON + 5K text) | 600KB | 1.93 ms |
| Plain text pass-through | 300KB | 0.56 ms |
# Encoder core benchmark (Rust native, no I/O)
cargo run --release --bin bench payload.json
# CLI stdin pipe benchmark
python3 -c "
import json
data = [{'id': i, 'name': f'item_{i}', 'price': i*1.5, 'tags': ['a','b','c']} for i in range(1000)]
print(json.dumps(data))
" > /tmp/bench.json
# Time 200 runs
start=$(date +%s%N)
for i in $(seq 1 200); do etoon < /tmp/bench.json > /dev/null; done
end=$(date +%s%N)
echo "$(echo "scale=2; ($end - $start) / 200000000" | bc)ms avg"Pre-built — no Rust required:
Download from GitHub Releases (Linux/macOS/Windows, x86_64/aarch64):
Linux
# x86_64
curl -L https://github.com/coseto6125/etoon/releases/latest/download/etoon-linux-x86_64 -o etoon
# Apple Silicon / ARM server (aarch64)
curl -L https://github.com/coseto6125/etoon/releases/latest/download/etoon-linux-aarch64 -o etoon
chmod +x etoon
sudo mv etoon /usr/local/bin/ # or ~/.local/bin/macOS
# Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4)
curl -L https://github.com/coseto6125/etoon/releases/latest/download/etoon-macos-aarch64 -o etoon
# Intel Mac
curl -L https://github.com/coseto6125/etoon/releases/latest/download/etoon-macos-x86_64 -o etoon
chmod +x etoon
sudo mv etoon /usr/local/bin/Windows
# PowerShell
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/coseto6125/etoon/releases/latest/download/etoon-windows-x86_64.exe" -OutFile "etoon.exe"
# Move to a directory in your PATH, e.g.:
Move-Item etoon.exe "$env:USERPROFILE\.local\bin\etoon.exe"Verify download (optional)
Each release includes SHA256 checksums, SLSA provenance attestation, and VirusTotal scan reports.
# 1. Verify checksum
curl -L https://github.com/coseto6125/etoon/releases/latest/download/SHA256SUMS.txt -o SHA256SUMS.txt
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing
# 2. Verify SLSA provenance (requires gh CLI)
gh attestation verify etoon-linux-x86_64 --repo coseto6125/etoon
# 3. VirusTotal — scan report links are in the release notesmacOS unsigned binary note: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine etoon to bypass Gatekeeper.
From source (requires Rust toolchain):
cargo install etoonpip install etoonThis installs the Python binding (
etoon.dumps()), not the CLI binary. For the CLI, use one of the methods above.
cargo add etoon --no-default-featuresimport etoon
docs = [{"id": 1, "name": "Alice"}, {"id": 2, "name": "Bob"}]
print(etoon.dumps(docs))
# [2]{id,name}:
# 1,Alice
# 2,Bobcurl -s https://api.example.com/data | etoon
cat data.json | etoon -o output.toon
aws logs tail /ecs/my-service | etoon # mixed log: JSON blocks → TOON, text → pass-through
etoon --strict < data.json # error on non-JSON (old behavior)Append | etoon to shell commands so the AI reads TOON instead of raw JSON — 40-60% fewer tokens, lossless, auto-detects input format.
gh pr list --json number,title,author | etoon
aws logs tail /ecs/my-service | etoon
kubectl get pods -o json | etoonRules:
| etoongoes at the end of the pipeline —jq/grep/awkbefore it, never after- Auto-detects JSON / mixed log / plain text — safe to append to any command
- Skip only for: byte-exact diff, single-value lookups (1-2 lines)
Add to CLAUDE.md (or .claude/CLAUDE.md) in your project root:
## Bash Output
Append `| etoon` as the final pipe segment of any Bash command whose output
reaches the conversation. etoon auto-detects JSON, mixed log, and plain text.
Skip only for byte-exact diff or single-value lookups (1-2 lines).Add to .cursor/rules/etoon.mdc:
---
description: Compress shell output with etoon
globs:
alwaysApply: true
---
When running shell/terminal commands, append `| etoon` as the last pipe segment.
etoon auto-detects JSON, mixed log, and plain text — safe for any command.
Skip only for byte-exact diff or single-value lookups (1-2 lines).Add to AGENTS.md in your project root:
## Bash Output
Append `| etoon` as the final pipe segment of any shell command.
etoon auto-detects JSON, mixed log, and plain text (non-JSON passes through unchanged).
Skip only for byte-exact diff or single-value lookups (1-2 lines).Add to .windsurfrules (Windsurf) or the equivalent rules file:
When executing shell commands, always append `| etoon` at the end of the pipeline.
etoon auto-detects input format: JSON → compact TOON, mixed log → JSON blocks encoded + text pass-through, plain text → unchanged.
Skip only for byte-exact diff or single-value lookups (1-2 lines).Add to GEMINI.md in your project root:
## Bash Output
Append `| etoon` as the final pipe segment of any shell command.
etoon auto-detects JSON, mixed log, and plain text (non-JSON passes through unchanged).
Skip only for byte-exact diff or single-value lookups (1-2 lines).Add to system prompt or custom instructions:
When generating shell commands for the user, append `| etoon` as the last pipe segment.
etoon converts JSON to TOON (40-60% fewer tokens). Non-JSON passes through unchanged.
let json_bytes = serde_json::to_vec(&my_data)?;
let toon = etoon::toon::encode(&json_bytes)?;Python dict → orjson.dumps → JSON bytes → sonic-rs (SIMD parse) → walk → TOON string
Key optimizations:
- sonic-rs SIMD JSON parser (~7× faster than serde_json)
- orjson bridge — single boundary crossing (vs PyO3-based alternatives)
- uniform-order table fast path — skips 300 key lookups per 50-row table
- itoa specialized integer formatting
Output is byte-identical to the toons Python package (Apache 2.0) and the
official toon-format/toon TypeScript SDK. Passes 111/111 TOON spec
fixtures covering primitives, objects, arrays (primitive/tabular/nested/bulleted),
and whitespace.
Keys starting with @, $, or # are treated as valid identifiers — no quoting needed. This gives native support for:
| Sigil | Ecosystem | Examples |
|---|---|---|
@ |
AWS CloudWatch, Elasticsearch, Serilog, XML→JSON | @timestamp, @message, @version |
$ |
MongoDB, JSON Schema, AWS CloudFormation | $match, $ref, $schema, $type |
# |
JSON-LD, Azure Resource Manager | #comment, #id |
# AWS CloudWatch Insights output
echo '[{"@timestamp":"2026-04-06T12:00:01Z","@message":"POST /api/v1/users 504","statusCode":504}]' | etoon
# [1]{@timestamp,@message,statusCode}:
# "2026-04-06T12:00:01Z",POST /api/v1/users 504,504tiktoken (offline, BPE tokenizer):
| Tokenizer (model family) | JSON | TOON | Saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| o200k_base (GPT-4o/5/o3) | 484 | 334 | 31.0% |
| cl100k_base (GPT-4/3.5 ≈ Claude) | 479 | 332 | 30.7% |
tokencalculator.ai (online, estimated per-model cost):
| Model | JSON | TOON | Saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Est. Tokens | 314 | 189 | 39.8% |
| OpenAI GPT-5.4 | $0.000785 | $0.000473 | 39.7% |
| Claude Opus 4.6 | $0.001570 | $0.000945 | 39.8% |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $0.000628 | $0.000378 | 39.8% |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $0.000088 | $0.000053 | 39.8% |
| Grok 4.20 | $0.000063 | $0.000038 | 39.7% |
Savings increase with volume — 50 entries reach 35%+ (tiktoken) as the tabular header is amortized.
These are TOON spec optional parameters, intended for programmatic use in your codebase (Python / Rust library calls). The CLI
| etoonpipe for LLM workflows uses defaults and does not need these.
# Custom delimiter (when values contain commas)
etoon.dumps(data, delimiter="|") # or "\t"
# Key folding: collapse {a:{b:{c:1}}} → "a.b.c: 1"
etoon.dumps(data, fold_keys=True)
etoon.dumps(data, fold_keys=True, flatten_depth=2) # partial fold- Integers > 2⁶³ are lossily coerced via f64 (works for most common big integers that happen to be representable; arbitrary-precision is not supported).
- Custom
indentis hardcoded to 2 spaces (TOON spec default).
Apache 2.0. Test fixtures in tests/fixtures/ are sourced from the
toons project (Apache 2.0).