STYX

A structured document format for humans.

STYX replaces YAML, TOML, and JSON for configuration files and data authored by people. It uses explicit delimiters instead of indentation, keeps scalars opaque until deserialization, and provides modern conveniences like heredocs and tagged values.

server {
  host localhost
  port 8080
  tls {
    cert /etc/ssl/cert.pem
    key /etc/ssl/key.pem
  }
}

features (auth logging metrics)

Quick examples

Objects

json

{
  "name": "alice",
  "age": 30
}

styx

{name alice, age 30}

Sequences

json

["a", "b", "c"]

styx

(a b c)

Tagged values

json

{"$tag": "rgb", "$values": [255, 128, 0]}

styx

@rgb(255 128 0)

Why STYX?

Explicit structure — Braces and parentheses, not indentation
Two-layer processing — Parser handles structure, deserializer handles types
Opaque scalars — 42 is text until you deserialize it
Modern features — Heredocs, raw strings, tagged values, schemas

Documentation

Parser Spec — Formal syntax rules
Schema Spec — Type system and validation
Diagnostics — Error message standards
Rust Bindings — How Rust types map to STYX
Comparisons — vs JSON, YAML, TOML, KDL