use-toon

<objective> TOON with schema.org vocabulary provides a standard format for prompting and instructing agents. Use it to structure task delegation, specify expected outputs, and ensure consistent responses from subagents and builtin agents.

Key benefits:

• Clear task structure: schema.org Action types define what the agent should do
• Expected output format: Specify result type so agents return consistent data
• Token efficiency: 30-60% fewer tokens than JSON = more context for agent reasoning
• Semantic interoperability: Standard vocabulary eliminates ambiguity </objective>

<quick_start> <syntax> Object: key: value

Nested: Indentation (2 spaces)

Simple array: items[3]: a,b,c

Tabular array (uniform objects):

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

</syntax>

<when_to_use>

Use TOON	Use JSON
Agent task prompts	External API calls
Subagent instructions	Parsing with JSON.parse()
Expected response format	Human debugging
Agent-to-agent data	Deeply nested structures
</when_to_use>
</quick_start>

<agent_prompting> <task_delegation> Structure agent tasks as schema.org Actions:

@type: SearchAction
@id: task-001
description: Find all error handling patterns in the codebase

object:
  @type: SoftwareSourceCode
  codeRepository: ./src

expectedResult:
  @type: ItemList
  description: Files with error handling patterns

The agent knows:

• What to do: SearchAction = find/search
• What to search: object defines the target
• What to return: expectedResult specifies format </task_delegation>

<instruction_format> When instructing agents, include:

[Task description in natural language]

Input:
[TOON block with @type, @id, and structured data]

Return your result in TOON format using:
- @type: [expected type, e.g., ItemList, Report, SearchAction]
- @id: [task-id]-result
- Use tabular notation for lists

</instruction_format>

<common_task_types>

Task	schema.org Type	Use
Find/search	SearchAction	Code search, file discovery
Create/generate	CreateAction	Generate code, create files
Modify/update	UpdateAction	Edit files, refactor code
Validate/review	AssessAction	Code review, validation
Delete/remove	DeleteAction	Remove files, clean up
Analyze	AnalyzeAction	Code analysis, metrics
</common_task_types>
</agent_prompting>

<core_syntax> <scalars>

name: Alice
age: 30
active: true
score: null

Types auto-detected: strings, numbers, booleans, null. </scalars>

<nesting> ```toon user: name: Alice address: city: Boston zip: 02101 ``` Use 2-space indentation for nesting. </nesting>

<simple_arrays>

tags[3]: red,green,blue
ids[4]: 1,2,3,4

Format: key[count]: item1,item2,... </simple_arrays>

<tabular_arrays> For arrays of uniform objects (most efficient):

users[3,]{id,name,role}:
  1,Alice,admin
  2,Bob,user
  3,Carol,user

Format: key[rowCount,]{col1,col2,...}:

Each row provides values in column order, comma-separated. </tabular_arrays>

</core_syntax>

<schema_vocabulary> Use schema.org types and properties as shared vocabulary between agents.

<required_metadata> Every TOON object MUST include:

• @type: schema.org type (e.g., Person, SearchAction, ItemList)
• @id: Unique identifier for the object

@type: Person
@id: user-123
name: Alice
email: alice@example.com

</required_metadata>

<common_types>

Type	Use Case	Key Properties
Action	Task execution	agent, object, result, actionStatus
SearchAction	Search/find operations	query, result
CreateAction	Creation operations	result, targetCollection
UpdateAction	Modifications	targetCollection, result
AssessAction	Validation/review	result, actionStatus
ItemList	Collections	itemListElement, numberOfItems
Thing	Generic entity	name, description, identifier
CreativeWork	Documents/code	author, dateCreated, text
SoftwareSourceCode	Code snippets	programmingLanguage, codeRepository
</common_types>

<action_status> For Action types, use actionStatus property:

Status	Meaning
PotentialActionStatus	Not yet started
ActiveActionStatus	In progress
CompletedActionStatus	Successfully finished
FailedActionStatus	Failed with error

@type: SearchAction
@id: search-001
actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus
query: auth handlers
resultCount: 3

</action_status>

<nested_types> Use @type for nested objects too:

@type: CreateAction
@id: create-file-001
actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus

result:
  @type: SoftwareSourceCode
  name: auth.ts
  programmingLanguage: TypeScript

agent:
  @type: SoftwareApplication
  name: CodeAgent

</nested_types>

<property_conventions> Prefer schema.org property names:

Instead of	Use	schema.org property
file	name	Thing.name
path	url	Thing.url
content	text	CreativeWork.text
created	dateCreated	CreativeWork.dateCreated
author	author	CreativeWork.author
count	numberOfItems	ItemList.numberOfItems
items	itemListElement	ItemList.itemListElement
error	error	Action.error
</property_conventions>
</schema_vocabulary>

<prompting_patterns> <structured_input> When asking an agent to process structured data, use schema.org types:

Process this item list:

@type: ItemList
@id: pending-review
numberOfItems: 3

itemListElement[3,]{@type,identifier,name,status}:
  Product,A1,Widget,pending
  Product,A2,Gadget,shipped
  Product,A3,Gizmo,pending

Return pending items as an ItemList in TOON format.

</structured_input>

<requesting_toon_output> Include format instruction with schema.org guidance:

Return your answer in TOON format:
- Use appropriate schema.org @type (Action, ItemList, etc.)
- Include @id for the result object
- Use schema.org property names (name, description, result)
- Use tabular notation for uniform lists
- Wrap in ```toon code block

</requesting_toon_output>

<agent_task_pattern> For agent task delegation, structure as Action:

@type: SearchAction
@id: task-001
description: Find all authentication handlers

object:
  @type: SoftwareSourceCode
  codeRepository: ./src

expectedResult:
  @type: ItemList
  description: Files with auth handlers

</agent_task_pattern>

<agent_response_pattern> Agents return completed Actions:

@type: SearchAction
@id: task-001
actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus

result:
  @type: ItemList
  @id: task-001-result
  numberOfItems: 3

  itemListElement[3,]{@type,name,url,description}:
    SoftwareSourceCode,handleLogin,src/auth.ts:42,Login handler
    SoftwareSourceCode,handleLogout,src/auth.ts:78,Logout handler
    SoftwareSourceCode,authGuard,src/middleware.ts:15,Auth middleware

</agent_response_pattern>

<extraction_pattern> Parse TOON from LLM response:

def extract_toon(response: str) -> str:
    if "```toon" in response:
        return response.split("```toon")[1].split("```")[0].strip()
    elif "```" in response:
        return response.split("```")[1].split("```")[0].strip()
    return response.strip()

</extraction_pattern> </prompting_patterns>

<api_reference> Using the toon-format Python library (pip install toon-format):

from toon_format import encode, decode, estimate_savings

# Python dict to TOON
toon_str = encode(data, options={})

# TOON to Python dict
data = decode(toon_str, options={})

# Check efficiency
stats = estimate_savings(data)
# Returns: {"json_tokens": N, "toon_tokens": M, "savings_percent": X}

<options> | Option | Default | Use | |--------|---------|-----| | delimiter | "," | Row separator: ",", "\t", "|" | | lengthMarker | "" | Prefix for lengths: "", "#" | | strict | False | Validation strictness | </options> </api_reference>

<quoting_rules> Quote strings when they would be ambiguous:

Value	Requires Quotes	Reason
""	Yes	Empty string
"true"	Yes	Boolean keyword as string
"123"	Yes	Numeric string (not number)
"a,b"	Yes	Contains delimiter

Unquoted values are parsed as their natural type. </quoting_rules>

<success_criteria> TOON with schema.org is correctly applied when:

• Every object has @type (schema.org type) and @id
• Property names follow schema.org conventions
• Actions use appropriate actionStatus values
• Tabular notation used for uniform itemListElement arrays
• Code blocks tagged with toon language
• Data round-trips correctly: decode(encode(data)) == data </success_criteria>

<examples> <example name="search_action"> ```toon @type: SearchAction @id: search-auth-001 actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus query: authentication handlers

result: @type: ItemList @id: search-auth-001-result numberOfItems: 3

itemListElement[3,]{@type,name,url,description}: SoftwareSourceCode,handleLogin,src/auth.ts:42,Login handler SoftwareSourceCode,handleLogout,src/auth.ts:78,Logout handler SoftwareSourceCode,authGuard,src/middleware.ts:15,Auth middleware

</example>

<example name="create_action">
```toon
@type: CreateAction
@id: create-component-001
actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus
description: Create React component

result:
  @type: SoftwareSourceCode
  @id: button-component
  name: Button.tsx
  url: src/components/Button.tsx
  programmingLanguage: TypeScript
  dateCreated: 2025-01-15

</example> <example name="assess_action"> ```toon @type: AssessAction @id: validate-005 actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus description: Validate outcome specification

result: @type: Report @id: validate-005-report name: Validation Report reportStatus: NeedsAttention

itemListElement[2,]{@type,name,description}: Warning,missing-desc,Description field is empty Info,add-examples,Consider adding examples

</example>

<example name="item_list">
```toon
@type: ItemList
@id: pending-tasks
description: Tasks awaiting review
numberOfItems: 3

itemListElement[3,]{@type,identifier,name,status}:
  Action,task-001,Implement auth,PotentialActionStatus
  Action,task-002,Add tests,ActiveActionStatus
  Action,task-003,Update docs,PotentialActionStatus

</example> </examples>