# TOON

> Token-Oriented Object Notation

A compact, human-readable encoding of the JSON data model for LLM prompts.

## Table of Contents

### Guide

- [Getting Started](/guide/getting-started.md): What TOON is, when to use it, and a first encode/decode example with the TypeScript library.
- [Format Overview](/guide/format-overview.md): TOON syntax with concrete examples – objects, arrays, tabular headers, comments, and quoting rules.
- [What's New in v4](/guide/whats-new-in-v4.md): What changed from TOON v3 to v4 – nested field groups, keyed tabular form, comments, removed key folding, and how to upgrade.
- [Using TOON with LLMs](/guide/llm-prompts.md): Prompting strategies for sending TOON to LLMs and validating TOON they generate, with examples.
- [Benchmarks](/guide/benchmarks.md): Retrieval accuracy and token efficiency results for TOON across mixed-structure and flat-only tracks.

### Tooling

- [Playground](/playground.md)
- [Command Line Interface](/cli.md): Convert JSON to TOON and back from the command line, with token statistics, streaming, and delimiter options.

### Ecosystem

- [Tools and Playgrounds](/ecosystem/tools-and-playgrounds.md): TOON playgrounds, CLI, editor support, and ecosystem tools.
- [Implementations](/ecosystem/implementations.md): Official and community TOON implementations across languages, plus contribution pointers.

### Reference

- [API Reference](/reference/api.md): TypeScript and JavaScript encode and decode functions, options, error types, and streaming decoders for @toon-format/toon.
- [Syntax Cheatsheet](/reference/syntax-cheatsheet.md): JSON-to-TOON mappings at a glance for objects, arrays, tabular forms, quoting, and type conversions.
- [Specification](/reference/spec.md): Where the TOON specification lives, which version is current, and what each section covers.
- [TOON vs JSON: Byte-Level Efficiency Model](/reference/efficiency-formalization.md): Mathematical model of TOON's byte-level overhead vs JSON across structure families, with formulas and worked examples.

### Guide

- [Getting Started](/guide/getting-started.md): What TOON is, when to use it, and a first encode/decode example with the TypeScript library.
- [Format Overview](/guide/format-overview.md): TOON syntax with concrete examples – objects, arrays, tabular headers, comments, and quoting rules.
- [What's New in v4](/guide/whats-new-in-v4.md): What changed from TOON v3 to v4 – nested field groups, keyed tabular form, comments, removed key folding, and how to upgrade.
- [Using TOON with LLMs](/guide/llm-prompts.md): Prompting strategies for sending TOON to LLMs and validating TOON they generate, with examples.
- [Benchmarks](/guide/benchmarks.md): Retrieval accuracy and token efficiency results for TOON across mixed-structure and flat-only tracks.

### Tooling

- [Playground](/playground.md)
- [Command Line Interface](/cli.md): Convert JSON to TOON and back from the command line, with token statistics, streaming, and delimiter options.

### Ecosystem

- [Tools and Playgrounds](/ecosystem/tools-and-playgrounds.md): TOON playgrounds, CLI, editor support, and ecosystem tools.
- [Implementations](/ecosystem/implementations.md): Official and community TOON implementations across languages, plus contribution pointers.

### Reference

- [API Reference](/reference/api.md): TypeScript and JavaScript encode and decode functions, options, error types, and streaming decoders for @toon-format/toon.
- [Syntax Cheatsheet](/reference/syntax-cheatsheet.md): JSON-to-TOON mappings at a glance for objects, arrays, tabular forms, quoting, and type conversions.
- [Specification](/reference/spec.md): Where the TOON specification lives, which version is current, and what each section covers.
- [TOON vs JSON: Byte-Level Efficiency Model](/reference/efficiency-formalization.md): Mathematical model of TOON's byte-level overhead vs JSON across structure families, with formulas and worked examples.

### Guide

- [Getting Started](/guide/getting-started.md): What TOON is, when to use it, and a first encode/decode example with the TypeScript library.
- [Format Overview](/guide/format-overview.md): TOON syntax with concrete examples – objects, arrays, tabular headers, comments, and quoting rules.
- [What's New in v4](/guide/whats-new-in-v4.md): What changed from TOON v3 to v4 – nested field groups, keyed tabular form, comments, removed key folding, and how to upgrade.
- [Using TOON with LLMs](/guide/llm-prompts.md): Prompting strategies for sending TOON to LLMs and validating TOON they generate, with examples.
- [Benchmarks](/guide/benchmarks.md): Retrieval accuracy and token efficiency results for TOON across mixed-structure and flat-only tracks.

### Tooling

- [Playground](/playground.md)
- [Command Line Interface](/cli.md): Convert JSON to TOON and back from the command line, with token statistics, streaming, and delimiter options.

### Ecosystem

- [Tools and Playgrounds](/ecosystem/tools-and-playgrounds.md): TOON playgrounds, CLI, editor support, and ecosystem tools.
- [Implementations](/ecosystem/implementations.md): Official and community TOON implementations across languages, plus contribution pointers.

### Reference

- [API Reference](/reference/api.md): TypeScript and JavaScript encode and decode functions, options, error types, and streaming decoders for @toon-format/toon.
- [Syntax Cheatsheet](/reference/syntax-cheatsheet.md): JSON-to-TOON mappings at a glance for objects, arrays, tabular forms, quoting, and type conversions.
- [Specification](/reference/spec.md): Where the TOON specification lives, which version is current, and what each section covers.
- [TOON vs JSON: Byte-Level Efficiency Model](/reference/efficiency-formalization.md): Mathematical model of TOON's byte-level overhead vs JSON across structure families, with formulas and worked examples.

### Guide

- [Getting Started](/guide/getting-started.md): What TOON is, when to use it, and a first encode/decode example with the TypeScript library.
- [Format Overview](/guide/format-overview.md): TOON syntax with concrete examples – objects, arrays, tabular headers, comments, and quoting rules.
- [What's New in v4](/guide/whats-new-in-v4.md): What changed from TOON v3 to v4 – nested field groups, keyed tabular form, comments, removed key folding, and how to upgrade.
- [Using TOON with LLMs](/guide/llm-prompts.md): Prompting strategies for sending TOON to LLMs and validating TOON they generate, with examples.
- [Benchmarks](/guide/benchmarks.md): Retrieval accuracy and token efficiency results for TOON across mixed-structure and flat-only tracks.

### Tooling

- [Playground](/playground.md)
- [Command Line Interface](/cli.md): Convert JSON to TOON and back from the command line, with token statistics, streaming, and delimiter options.

### Ecosystem

- [Tools and Playgrounds](/ecosystem/tools-and-playgrounds.md): TOON playgrounds, CLI, editor support, and ecosystem tools.
- [Implementations](/ecosystem/implementations.md): Official and community TOON implementations across languages, plus contribution pointers.

### Reference

- [API Reference](/reference/api.md): TypeScript and JavaScript encode and decode functions, options, error types, and streaming decoders for @toon-format/toon.
- [Syntax Cheatsheet](/reference/syntax-cheatsheet.md): JSON-to-TOON mappings at a glance for objects, arrays, tabular forms, quoting, and type conversions.
- [Specification](/reference/spec.md): Where the TOON specification lives, which version is current, and what each section covers.
- [TOON vs JSON: Byte-Level Efficiency Model](/reference/efficiency-formalization.md): Mathematical model of TOON's byte-level overhead vs JSON across structure families, with formulas and worked examples.