┌─ FILE ANALYSIS ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┐
│ DEVELOPER : Tom Preston-Werner
│ CATEGORY : Data
│ MIME TYPE : application/toml
└ ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┘
What is a TOML file?
TOML (Tom’s Obvious, Minimal Language) is a configuration file format created by GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner. It is designed to be minimal and unambiguous, mapping directly to a hash table. TOML is used as the configuration format for Rust (Cargo.toml), Python (pyproject.toml), and many other tools.
How to open TOML files
- VS Code (Windows, macOS, Linux) — With Even Better TOML extension
- Any text editor — TOML files are plain text
- toml (Python) —
pip install tomlfor parsing - toml-rs (Rust) — Native TOML parsing
Technical specifications
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Version | TOML v1.0.0 (2021) |
| Encoding | UTF-8 |
| Data Types | String, integer, float, boolean, datetime, array, table |
| Comments | Hash (#) line comments |
| Nesting | Dot-separated keys or [table] headers |
Common use cases
- Rust projects: Cargo.toml package configuration.
- Python projects: pyproject.toml build configuration.
- Go modules: go.mod companion configuration.
- Static site generators: Hugo, Pelican configuration.