File formats are boring. BO-RING! However, bad file formats can be a real pain, leading to real suffering and bitterness. We put our heads together with Alexandros Stamatakis to design a sane file format for phylogenetic placements. It’s based on old friends Newick and JSON, and is reasonably compact and extensible. Our paper about it just came out in PLoS ONE. This wasn’t the most interesting work, but establishing standards is a win for both users and developers.