CTON: JSON-compatible, token-efficient text format for LLM prompts
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HN · launched Nov 20, 2025 · 13 upvotes (top 42%) · 0 views
Niche: machine learning developer tools · 303 launches, 11 in the last 7 days ▼ -45% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Model & infra
- Developer
- AI feature
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 303 launches in machine learning developer tools →
Could you build this?
Yes Designing a lightweight, concise serialization syntax alternative to JSON and writing an encoder/decoder library to save LLM prompt tokens is straightforward language/string manipulation.
Discussion
1 comment analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: TOON
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 1835 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #722 of 1836 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 21 days after the earliest competitor.
- Tokensift, an open-sourced token-efficiency linter for LLM prompts · hn · 2026-08-29 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.83
- prompt-poet · github · 2026-11-05 · 50 upvotes · similarity 0.76
- PrePrompt · hn · 2026-04-28 · 23 upvotes · similarity 0.66
- TokenPath · hn · 2026-07-21 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.64
- Anki-LLM · hn · 2025-11-02 · 60 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- An LLM translator whose source is a single prompt · hn · 2026-05-26 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- Reducing LLM input tokens by 70% · hn · 2026-05-12 · 56 upvotes · similarity 0.60
- KillSwitch · hn · 2026-09-19 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.59
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