HAhandfuloflight·Jan 1, 2026Submission
ISON: Interchange Simple Object Notation
2 points · Open discussionISON-format
ison
Python2025–2026
ISON-format / ison
ison
🔥 Token-efficient JSON alternative for LLMs & agentic AI — same data, fewer tokens. Python · JS/TS · Rust · Go · C++
2Distinct people
3Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
127GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
🔥 Token-efficient JSON alternative for LLMs & agentic AI — same data, fewer tokens. Python · JS/TS · Rust · Go · C++
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by 6-hour interval3 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2025-12-26 23:38:28 UTC to 2026-01-01 22:48:13 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 26, 18:00 | 2025-12-26 18:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-27 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Dec 27, 00:00 | 2025-12-27 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-27 06:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 27, 06:00 | 2025-12-27 06:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-27 12:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 27, 12:00 | 2025-12-27 12:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-27 18:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 27, 18:00 | 2025-12-27 18:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-28 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 28, 00:00 | 2025-12-28 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-28 06:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 28, 06:00 | 2025-12-28 06:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-28 12:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 28, 12:00 | 2025-12-28 12:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-28 18:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 28, 18:00 | 2025-12-28 18:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-29 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 29, 00:00 | 2025-12-29 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-29 06:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 29, 06:00 | 2025-12-29 06:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-29 12:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 29, 12:00 | 2025-12-29 12:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-29 18:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 29, 18:00 | 2025-12-29 18:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-30 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 30, 00:00 | 2025-12-30 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-30 06:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 30, 06:00 | 2025-12-30 06:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-30 12:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 30, 12:00 | 2025-12-30 12:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-30 18:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 30, 18:00 | 2025-12-30 18:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-31 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 31, 00:00 | 2025-12-31 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-31 06:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 31, 06:00 | 2025-12-31 06:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-31 12:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 31, 12:00 | 2025-12-31 12:00:00 UTC | 2025-12-31 18:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 31, 18:00 | 2025-12-31 18:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 1, 00:00 | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 06:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Jan 1, 06:00 | 2026-01-01 06:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 12:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 1, 12:00 | 2026-01-01 12:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 18:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 1, 18:00 | 2026-01-01 18:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-02 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
3 sourcesPublished the Benchmark with Results
https://ison.dev/benchmark.html
https://github.com/maheshvaikri-code/ison/tree/main/benchmar...
In Show HN: ISON – Data format that uses 30-70% fewer tokens than JSON for LLMsShow HN: ISON – Data format that uses 30-70% fewer tokens than JSON for LLMs
ISON (Interchange Simple Object Notation) - a data format optimized for LLMs and Agentic AI.
The problem: JSON wastes tokens. Curly braces, quotes, colons, commas - all eat into your context window.
ISON uses tabular patterns that LLMs already understand from training data:
JSON (87 tokens):
{
"users": [
{"id": 1, "name": "Alice", "email": "alice@example.com"},
{"id": 2, "name": "Bob", "email": "bob@example.com"}
]
}
ISON (34 tokens):
table.users
id:int name:string email
1 Alice alice@example.com
2 Bob bob@example.com
Features:
- 30-70% token reduction
- Type annotations
- References between tables
- Schema validation (ISONantic)
- Streaming format (ISONL)
Implementations: Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, C++
9 packages, 171+ tests passing
pip install ison-py # Parser
pip install isonantic # Validation & schem
Read the rest
as
npm install ison-parser # JavaScript
npm install ison-ts # TypeScript with full types
npm install isonantic-ts # Validation & schemas
[dependencies]
ison-rs = "1.0"
isonantic-rs = "1.0" # Validation & schemas
Looking for feedback on the format design.