tomlmini

A small, readable TOML common-subset parser that rejects ambiguous edges loudly.

Thesis: a config parser can be useful even when it does not chase every corner of a format. tomlmini covers the TOML shapes most projects actually use and makes unsupported ambiguity explicit.

Run It In 30 Seconds

python -m pip install -e ".[dev]" && python examples/parse_config.py

Why Care?

• You want a reference-quality parser small enough to read.
• You want conformance checks against tomllib for supported shapes.
• You prefer explicit parse errors over silent table/key merging surprises.

Example

import tomlmini

config = tomlmini.loads('''
title = "demo"
[server]
port = 8080
''')
assert config["server"]["port"] == 8080

Architecture

flowchart LR
    Text --> Parser
    Parser --> Values
    Parser --> Tables
    Tables --> DuplicateChecks
    DuplicateChecks --> Dict

Loading

Supported

Tables, dotted keys, arrays of tables, inline tables, strings, booleans, integers, floats, dates, times, and datetimes for the common TOML 1.0 subset.

Limitations

• Parser only; no dumps.
• Not a full TOML replacement.
• Ambiguous dotted-key/table-header edge cases are rejected rather than merged.

Development

python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
ruff check .
mypy --strict src/tomlmini
pytest
python scripts/conformance_smoke.py

See ARCHITECTURE.md, TECHNICAL_ARTICLE.md, and RELEASE.md.