Ktav: I got fed up with every config format, so I built one with no quotes, no commas, no indentation hell

This started as a rage-quit from config files.

I was hacking on a hobby project — a SOCKS5 proxy rotator — and every time I needed to tweak launch configs, I'd lose time fighting the format itself instead of the actual problem. After years of being mildly annoyed at every config format I tried, I finally snapped and built my own.

It's called Ktav (כְּתָב, Hebrew for "script/writing"). This article is the long version of what it is, why every existing format made me give up, and the design decisions that went into the parser, the FFI strategy across seven languages, and the editor tooling. It's open-source, dual-licensed MIT OR Apache-2.0, and the playground is in the browser if you'd rather just try it.

The graveyard of formats I tried

Before writing one more line of code, let me explain why none of the existing options worked.