TOON Format Claims to Cut LLM Token Usage by Up to 60% for JSON Arrays
A developer has introduced TOON, a compact data format designed to reduce the number of tokens consumed when sending JSON arrays to large language models like GPT and Claude. Standard JSON repeats object keys for every record, which becomes costly at scale; TOON addresses this by declaring keys once and listing values row by row. The creator reports token reductions of 30 to 60 percent on test datasets, with greater savings for larger arrays with short values. The format requires a brief instruction line so the model understands the structure, and it works best for arrays of similarly shaped objects rather than deeply nested or mixed data. A free browser-based converter between JSON and TOON is available at jsontoonpro.com.
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