n8n-nodes-ison

n8n community node for ISON (Interchange Simple Object Notation) - a token-efficient data format optimized for LLMs and AI workflows.

Save 30-70% on LLM tokens by using ISON instead of JSON in your n8n AI workflows.

Installation

Community Nodes (Recommended)

1. Go to Settings > Community Nodes
2. Select Install
3. Enter n8n-nodes-ison and click Install

Manual Installation

npm install n8n-nodes-ison

Operations

Parse ISON

Convert ISON text to JSON for processing in n8n workflows.

Input:

table.users
id name email
1 Alice [email protected]
2 Bob [email protected]

Output:

{
  "users": [
    {"id": 1, "name": "Alice", "email": "[email protected]"},
    {"id": 2, "name": "Bob", "email": "[email protected]"}
  ]
}

Convert to ISON

Convert JSON data to ISON format for token-efficient LLM prompts.

Input:

{
  "users": [
    {"id": 1, "name": "Alice"},
    {"id": 2, "name": "Bob"}
  ]
}

Output:

table.users
id name
1 Alice
2 Bob

Parse ISONL

Parse ISONL (streaming format) to JSON array. Each line is one record.

Input:

table.users|id name|1 Alice
table.users|id name|2 Bob

Output:

{
  "records": [
    {"_block": "users", "id": 1, "name": "Alice"},
    {"_block": "users", "id": 2, "name": "Bob"}
  ]
}

Convert to ISONL

Convert JSON to ISONL streaming format for processing large datasets.

Count Tokens

Count approximate tokens and compare ISON vs JSON savings.

Output:

{
  "tokens": 45,
  "characters": 180,
  "jsonTokens": 120,
  "savings": "62%"
}

Use Cases

1. LLM Context Optimization

Reduce tokens when sending data to OpenAI, Anthropic, or other LLM nodes:

[HTTP Request] → [ISON: Convert to ISON] → [OpenAI] → [ISON: Parse ISON]

2. RAG Pipeline

Efficient context injection for retrieval-augmented generation:

[Vector Store] → [ISON: Convert to ISON] → [Chat Model]

3. Data Processing

Convert between formats in ETL workflows:

[Database] → [ISON: Convert to ISONL] → [Write File]

4. Token Budget Management

Track and optimize token usage:

[Data] → [ISON: Count Tokens] → [IF: tokens > budget] → [Summarize]

ISON Format Quick Reference

# Comments start with #

table.users                          # Block header
id:int name:string email active:bool # Fields with optional types
1 Alice [email protected] true       # Data rows
2 "Bob Smith" [email protected] false  # Quoted strings for spaces

table.orders
id user_id product
1 :1 Widget                          # :1 = reference to id 1
2 :user:42 Gadget                    # :user:42 = namespaced ref

Why ISON?

| Format | Tokens | Savings | |--------|--------|---------| | JSON (pretty) | 150 | - | | JSON (compact) | 100 | 33% | | ISON | 45 | 70% |

ISON achieves this by:

• No quotes around keys
• No commas or colons
• No brackets for arrays
• Space-separated values
• Built-in references (:id)

Links

• ISON Website
• Documentation
• Playground
• GitHub

License

MIT

Author

Mahesh Vaikri