I agree with the confusion (PR proposes separators=COMPACT, issue compact=True).

I like the concept but not either of the APIs proposed. I *much* more often want to get pretty output -- if I had a dime for every time I've written "json.dumps(obj, sort_keys=True, indent=4)" I'd be rich enough to buy an entire cup of Starbucks coffee. But then you'd need a pretty=True option as well, which would be mutually exclusive with compact=True, so not great.

But what about a style= (or "format="?) parameter, which defaults to 'default' (or just None) meaning the same as now. If you pass format='pretty' you get "sort_keys=True, indent=4" and if you pass format='compact' you get "separators=(',', ':')".