Laravel TOON

The most complete TOON implementation for Laravel, and the only one with full TOON v3.0 specification compliance. Listed as official Laravel implementation.

TOON (Token-Optimized Object Notation) is a compact, YAML-like format designed to reduce token usage when sending data to LLMs. This package achieves ~50% token reduction compared to JSON while maintaining full round-trip fidelity, backed by 470 tests.

Installation

composer require mischasigtermans/laravel-toon

Quick Start

use MischaSigtermans\Toon\Facades\Toon;

$data = [
    'users' => [
        ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'Alice', 'active' => true],
        ['id' => 2, 'name' => 'Bob', 'active' => false],
    ],
];

// Encode to TOON
$toon = Toon::encode($data);

// Decode back to array
$original = Toon::decode($toon);

Output:

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

Global Helper Functions

For convenience, global helper functions are available:

// Encode to TOON
$toon = toon_encode($data);

// Decode back to array
$original = toon_decode($toon);

Collection Macro: toToon

You can convert any Laravel collection directly to TOON format with the built-in toToon macro:

$collection = collect([
    ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'Alice'],
    ['id' => 2, 'name' => 'Bob'],
]);
$toon = $collection->toToon();

Output:

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

Eloquent Model: toToon

Eloquent models have a toToon method, similar to toJson and toArray:

$user = User::find(1);
$toon = $user->toToon();

Why TOON?

When building MCP servers or LLM-powered applications, every token counts. JSON's verbosity wastes context window space with repeated keys and structural characters.

JSON (201 bytes):

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

TOON (62 bytes) - 69% smaller:

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

Benchmarks

For a typical paginated API response (50 records):

• JSON: ~7,597 tokens
• TOON: ~3,586 tokens
• Saved: ~4,000 tokens per request

Real-world benchmarks from a production application with 17,000+ records:

Features

Tabular Format

Arrays of uniform objects with primitive values are encoded as compact tables:

$data = [
    ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'Alice', 'role' => 'admin'],
    ['id' => 2, 'name' => 'Bob', 'role' => 'user'],
];

$toon = Toon::encode($data);
// [2]{id,name,role}:
//   1,Alice,admin
//   2,Bob,user

List Format for Nested Objects

Arrays containing objects with nested properties use list format for clarity:

$data = [
    ['id' => 1, 'author' => ['name' => 'Jane', 'email' => 'jane@example.com']],
    ['id' => 2, 'author' => ['name' => 'John', 'email' => 'john@example.com']],
];

$toon = Toon::encode($data);
// [2]:
//   - id: 1
//     author:
//       name: Jane
//       email: jane@example.com
//   - id: 2
//     author:
//       name: John
//       email: john@example.com

$decoded = Toon::decode($toon);
// Returns original nested structure

Type Preservation

All scalar types are preserved through encode/decode:

$data = [
    'count' => 42,
    'price' => 19.99,
    'active' => true,
    'deleted' => false,
    'notes' => null,
];

$decoded = Toon::decode(Toon::encode($data));
// Types are preserved: int, float, bool, null

String Quoting (Spec-Compliant)

Strings containing special characters are automatically quoted per the TOON spec:

$data = ['message' => 'Hello, World: How are you?'];
$toon = Toon::encode($data);
// message: "Hello, World: How are you?"

$data = ['text' => "Line 1\nLine 2"];
$toon = Toon::encode($data);
// text: "Line 1\nLine 2"

Safe strings (alphanumeric, underscores, dots) remain unquoted for minimal overhead.

Configuration

Publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=toon-config

Basic Options

// config/toon.php
return [
    // Arrays with fewer items use regular object format instead of tables
    'min_rows_for_table' => 2,

    // Delimiter for array values: ',' (default), '\t' (tab), or '|' (pipe)
    'delimiter' => ',',

    // Strict mode for decoding (throws on malformed input)
    'strict' => true,
];

Token-Saving Options

return [
    // Omit values to save tokens: 'null', 'empty', 'false', or 'all'
    'omit' => ['null', 'empty'],

    // Always skip these keys
    'omit_keys' => ['created_at', 'updated_at'],

    // Shorten verbose keys
    'key_aliases' => [
        'description' => 'desc',
        'organization_id' => 'org_id',
    ],
];

Value Transformation

return [
    // Format dates (DateTime objects and ISO strings)
    'date_format' => 'Y-m-d',

    // Truncate long strings (adds ... suffix)
    'truncate_strings' => 100,

    // Limit decimal places for floats
    'number_precision' => 2,
];

Utility Methods

Measure Savings

$data = User::with('roles')->get()->toArray();

$diff = Toon::diff($data);
// [
//     'json_chars' => 12500,
//     'toon_chars' => 5200,
//     'saved_chars' => 7300,
//     'savings_percent' => 58.4,
// ]

Encode Specific Keys Only

$users = User::all()->toArray();

// Only include id and name, exclude email, password, etc.
$toon = Toon::only($users, ['id', 'name']);

Use Cases

MCP Servers

Reduce token usage when returning data from MCP tool calls:

public function handle(): string
{
    $users = User::with('roles')->limit(100)->get();

    return Toon::encode([
        'count' => $users->count(),
        'users' => $users->toArray(),
    ]);
}

LLM Context

Pack more data into your context window:

$context = Toon::encode([
    'conversation' => $messages,
    'user_profile' => $user->toArray(),
    'recent_orders' => $orders->toArray(),
]);

$response = $llm->chat([
    ['role' => 'system', 'content' => "Context:\n{$context}"],
    ['role' => 'user', 'content' => $question],
]);

API Responses

Optional TOON responses for token-conscious clients:

public function index(Request $request)
{
    $data = Product::paginate()->toArray();

    if ($request->header('Accept') === 'application/toon') {
        return response(Toon::encode($data))
            ->header('Content-Type', 'application/toon');
    }

    return response()->json($data);
}

Spec Compliance

This package implements the TOON v3.0 specification and passes the official specification test suite. Key compliance features:

• String quoting: Safe strings unquoted, special characters properly escaped (\n, \r, \t, \", \\)
• Delimiter support: Comma (default), tab, and pipe delimiters
• Tabular format: Compact tables for arrays of primitive-only objects ([N]{fields}:)
• List format: Readable structure for arrays with nested objects ([N]: with - field: items)
• Inline arrays: Primitive arrays on single line (key[N]: a,b,c)
• Strict mode: Optional validation during decoding
• Backward compatibility: Decoder accepts legacy formats (backslash escaping, dot-notation columns)

Testing

composer test

The test suite includes 470 tests covering encoding, decoding, nested object handling, and official spec compliance fixtures.

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Laravel 10, 11, or 12

Credits

• Mischa Sigtermans

License

MIT