---
id: nestedtext
version: "3.8"
license: unclear
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# nestedtext — human readable and writable data interchange format

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 76.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

NestedText is a file format designed to make structured data easy for humans to read, edit, and write directly. Unlike JSON or YAML, it uses only strings as values—no integers, booleans, or floats—which eliminates the need for quoting and escaping. This simplicity makes the format robust against syntax errors and allows raw text (including code snippets) to be embedded without confusion.

The package provides a Python implementation with functions to parse NestedText files into Python dictionaries and lists, and to serialize them back to the format. It's intended for configuration files, data journals, address books, and similar applications where human readability matters. The format also works well for structured code use cases—like test specifications or workflow definitions—where embedding unquoted code snippets is valuable.

Use it for:

- Write and parse configuration files that are cleaner and more hierarchical than INI or TOML formats.
- Store test case specifications (commands, expected outputs, regexes) without quoting or escaping code snippets.
- Create human-editable data files (address books, contact lists, account information) that don't require special syntax knowledge.
- Build command-line tools that output data readable by both humans and other programs without a separate JSON flag.
- Define structured code or domain-specific languages where code snippets must be embedded without escaping conflicts.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

NestedText is a human-friendly file format for structured data that uses only strings, requiring no quoting or escaping, and provides a Python parser and serializer for reading and writing such files.

Yes. NestedText is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and installs with minimal friction. It's worth installing if you need a human-friendly alternative to JSON or YAML for configuration, test data, or structured text that avoids quoting and escaping overhead. The permissive MIT license poses no barrier.

## Install

pip install nestedtext
uv add nestedtext
poetry add nestedtext

## Installing nestedtext

Before you install: Low friction: pure Python wheel with a single dependency (inform). Active maintenance with recent commits and no known vulnerabilities.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive) — you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install nestedtext

import nestedtext

data = nestedtext.loads(open('config.nt').read())
print(data['name'])

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package handles round-trip serialization (load then dump) without data loss or formatting changes.
- Performance characteristics when working with large files or deeply nested structures.
- Whether inform dependency adds any runtime overhead or external system requirements.

## Package facts

- License: not declared (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 76.5K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

human readable data format, configuration file parser, structured text serialization, json alternative, nested data format, no-quote string format, data interchange format, data-format, config-files, human-readable

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/nestedtext) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/nestedtext/)