aontu

JSON structure unifier. A small language, and an engine that merges partial structures into one consistent result: or reports exactly where they conflict.

Schema, defaults and data are the same kind of thing, combined by one operation: unification. Any JSON document is already valid aontu, so an agent's output can be checked against a definition with no conversion step.

npm install -g aontu

The 30-second version

# a schema, a default, and data — one notation, one operation
port: integer
port: *8080|integer
host: string
host: "localhost"

$ aontu service.aontu
{ "host": "localhost", "port": 8080 }

A second port: "high" does not overwrite anything: it is a located conflict, reported with both sites.

Validate, query, explain

aontu vet service.aontu deploy.json   # does this data satisfy this schema?
aontu model get '$.services.auth' sys.aontu # one evaluated slice
aontu model why '$.services.auth.port' sys.aontu  # what contributed, and where
aontu breaking --against git#main sys.aontu # is the new version compatible?
aontu hash sys.aontu                  # a pin over MEANING, not bytes

vet exits by verdict class (0 valid, 1 invalid, 3 incomplete, 4 the schema itself is broken), so an agent loop can branch on it, and speaks JSON and SARIF as well as text.

There is also an MCP server (aontu-mcp) exposing vet, get, why, diff, canon and summary over the same contracts the CLI prints, and a language server (aontu-lsp).

Library

const { Aontu, vet } = require('aontu')

const report = vet(schemaSrc, dataSrc, { trust: { include: 'none' } })
report.verdict   // 'valid' | 'invalid' | 'incomplete' | 'error'
report.findings  // located, coded, with the sites that conflicted

Evaluating a document you did not write runs it. @"…" resolves through the filesystem and package chain by default, so pass a trust profile ({ include: 'none' }, a virtual file set, or a confined root) whenever the source is not yours. See the trust contract.

Two implementations, one specification

TypeScript (this package) is canonical; a Go port (github.com/aontu-lang/aontu/go) mirrors it. Both are checked against one language-agnostic suite of .tsv rows, so the same document means the same thing in a Node agent harness and a Go gateway.

Documentation

• Documentation home
• Tutorials
• Language reference
• Generation reference
• Functions reference
• Error reference
• API and CLI reference
• Agent skill

aontu is inspired by CUE, as a purpose-specific dialect.

License

MIT