Show HN: KSON, a love-letter to the humans maintaining computer configuration
dmarcotte Thursday, September 18, 2025Hi friends, I'm really excited to introduce KSON, which just entered public beta!
Anywhere a human is reading or editing YAML/JSON/TOML, KSON may be used as a more effective interface on that data. If you are such a human, we invite you to participate in this beta.
tl;dr Check out the website [1], play with the online playground [2], install the library for your programming language [3], edit in your favorite editor [4], discuss and give feedback [5], contribute to the project [6].
(A personal note about this project: I love software. Machines made of words! Such a wonder. KSON itself, as a collection of words that both make a machine and explain that machine, is an expression of a lot ideas I feel really passionately about around software and our relationship to it. I've put a lot of love into trying to make that expression eloquent and reliable. I hope some of that comes through clearly, and I look forward to discussing this more over time with anyone who's interested)
One of the key things KSON wants to say is: let's keep everything that's great about YAML and JSON as "Configuration User Interfaces", and let's make those interfaces more toolable, robust, and fun. Here's some of the ways we do that:
- KSON is a verified superset of JSON, has native JSON Schema support, transpiles cleanly to YAML (with comments preserved!), and is likely available wherever you want it—current supported platforms: JS/TS, Python, Rust, JVM, and Kotlin Multiplatform.
- KSON is also widely available in developer tools, with support for VS Code, Jetbrains IDEs, and anywhere you can plug in an LSP.
- KSON is fully open source, licensed under Apache-2.0, and you are invited to meet its words and tinker with how they make its machine. A lot of care, craft, attention and joy went into making the KSON project understandable and approachable for developers. We hope to see you around.
PS. This is an HN-friendly version of the official announcement at <https://kson.org/docs/blog/2025/09/17/introducing-kson/>.
[1]: https://kson.org/
[2]: https://kson.org/playground/
[3]: https://kson.org/docs/install/#languages
[4]: https://kson.org/docs/install/#editor-support