Toon.NET 0.3.1

.NET 8.0 .NET Standard 2.1

dotnet add package Toon.NET --version 0.3.1

NuGet\Install-Package Toon.NET -Version 0.3.1

This command is intended to be used within the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio, as it uses the NuGet module's version of Install-Package.

<PackageReference Include="Toon.NET" Version="0.3.1" />

For projects that support PackageReference, copy this XML node into the project file to reference the package.

<PackageVersion Include="Toon.NET" Version="0.3.1" />
                    

                            Directory.Packages.props

<PackageReference Include="Toon.NET" />
                    

                            Project file

For projects that support Central Package Management (CPM), copy this XML node into the solution Directory.Packages.props file to version the package.

paket add Toon.NET --version 0.3.1

The NuGet Team does not provide support for this client. Please contact its maintainers for support.

#r "nuget: Toon.NET, 0.3.1"

#r directive can be used in F# Interactive and Polyglot Notebooks. Copy this into the interactive tool or source code of the script to reference the package.

#:package Toon.NET@0.3.1

#:package directive can be used in C# file-based apps starting in .NET 10 preview 4. Copy this into a .cs file before any lines of code to reference the package.

#addin nuget:?package=Toon.NET&version=0.3.1
                    

                            Install as a Cake Addin

#tool nuget:?package=Toon.NET&version=0.3.1
                    

                            Install as a Cake Tool

The NuGet Team does not provide support for this client. Please contact its maintainers for support.

toon.NET

Token-Oriented Object Notation (TOON) for .NET.

Token-Oriented Object Notation is a compact, human-readable format designed for passing structured data to Large Language Models with significantly reduced token usage. It's intended for LLM input, not output.

TOON's sweet spot is uniform arrays of objects – multiple fields per row, same structure across items. It borrows YAML's indentation-based structure for nested objects and CSV's tabular format for uniform data rows, then optimizes both for token efficiency in LLM contexts. For deeply nested or non-uniform data, JSON may be more efficient.

Think of TOON as a translation layer: use JSON programmatically, convert to TOON for LLM input.

Usage

var serializer = new ToonSerializer();

var data = new {
  user = new {
    id = 123,
    name = "Ada",
    tags = new[] { "reading", "gaming" },
    active = true,
    preferences = new[] { }
  }
}

var dataString = serializer.Serialize(data);

Console.WriteLine(dataString);

//// example output:
// user:
//   id: 123
//   name: Ada
//   tags[2]: reading,gaming
//   active: true
//   preferences[0]:

Why TOON?

AI is becoming cheaper and more accessible, but larger context windows allow for larger data inputs as well. LLM tokens still cost money – and standard JSON is verbose and token-expensive:

{
  "users": [
    { "id": 1, "name": "Alice", "role": "admin" },
    { "id": 2, "name": "Bob", "role": "user" }
  ]
}

TOON conveys the same information with fewer tokens:

users[2]{id,name,role}:
  1,Alice,admin
  2,Bob,user

Key Features

💸 Token-efficient: typically 30–60% fewer tokens than JSON
🤿 LLM-friendly guardrails: explicit lengths and field lists help models validate output
🍱 Minimal syntax: removes redundant punctuation (braces, brackets, most quotes)
📐 Indentation-based structure: replaces braces with whitespace for better readability
🧺 Tabular arrays: declare keys once, then stream rows without repetition

Acknowledgements

This is a port of https://github.com/johannschopplich/toon to .NET

Product	Compatible and additional computed target framework versions.
.NET	net5.0 was computed. net5.0-windows was computed. net6.0 was computed. net6.0-android was computed. net6.0-ios was computed. net6.0-maccatalyst was computed. net6.0-macos was computed. net6.0-tvos was computed. net6.0-windows was computed. net7.0 was computed. net7.0-android was computed. net7.0-ios was computed. net7.0-maccatalyst was computed. net7.0-macos was computed. net7.0-tvos was computed. net7.0-windows was computed. net8.0 is compatible. net8.0-android was computed. net8.0-browser was computed. net8.0-ios was computed. net8.0-maccatalyst was computed. net8.0-macos was computed. net8.0-tvos was computed. net8.0-windows was computed. net9.0 is compatible. net9.0-android was computed. net9.0-browser was computed. net9.0-ios was computed. net9.0-maccatalyst was computed. net9.0-macos was computed. net9.0-tvos was computed. net9.0-windows was computed. net10.0 was computed. net10.0-android was computed. net10.0-browser was computed. net10.0-ios was computed. net10.0-maccatalyst was computed. net10.0-macos was computed. net10.0-tvos was computed. net10.0-windows was computed.
.NET Core	netcoreapp3.0 was computed. netcoreapp3.1 was computed.
.NET Standard	netstandard2.1 is compatible.
MonoAndroid	monoandroid was computed.
MonoMac	monomac was computed.
MonoTouch	monotouch was computed.
Tizen	tizen60 was computed.
Xamarin.iOS	xamarinios was computed.
Xamarin.Mac	xamarinmac was computed.
Xamarin.TVOS	xamarintvos was computed.
Xamarin.WatchOS	xamarinwatchos was computed.

Compatible target framework(s)

Included target framework(s) (in package)

Learn more about Target Frameworks and .NET Standard.

.NETStandard 2.1
- No dependencies.
net8.0
- No dependencies.
net9.0
- No dependencies.

NuGet packages

This package is not used by any NuGet packages.

GitHub repositories

This package is not used by any popular GitHub repositories.

Version	Downloads	Last Updated
0.3.1	766	10/30/2025