TypeID Generator

About TypeID Generator

A TypeID is a UUID v7 with the name of what it identifies in front of it: user_01j9z8k2qp7m3nb4vd5xe6ftgh. The suffix is the UUID's sixteen bytes in Crockford's base32, twenty-six characters, and it converts back to a plain UUID without losing anything — so the column stays a UUID and only what people read changes.

The prefix is the point. An identifier pasted into a ticket says what it is. One passed to a function expecting a different type is wrong on inspection rather than three joins later. And a log line full of them is readable in a way a log full of bare UUIDs is not.

Crockford's alphabet is what the specification requires: lower case, and without i, l, o or u, so nothing reads as a digit by mistake and nothing spells anything. A suffix built with ordinary base32 contains letters the spec forbids, and a conforming parser rejects it.

Because it is a UUID v7 underneath, it sorts by creation time and carries 74 random bits inside each millisecond. Everything true of v7 is true of this, including that the timestamp is public.

Where it helps

• The type travels with the identifier, so a copied string says what it belongs to.
• Converts to and from a plain UUID with nothing lost, so the database column does not have to change.
• Sorts by creation time, which keeps inserts at the end of the index rather than scattering them.
• Crockford base32: no ambiguous characters, and nothing that accidentally spells a word.
• The prefix is checked against the specification here rather than by somebody else's parser later.

Limits

• It discloses its creation time to the millisecond, as every UUID v7 does.
• The prefix tells a reader what kind of thing they have found, which helps in a log and helps an attacker in a leak.
• Longer than the UUID it wraps once the prefix is counted.
• The specification is young and has already changed its prefix rules once; pin the version you are targeting.

Frequently asked questions

Can I store it as a UUID?

Yes, and that is the usual arrangement: store the UUID, render the TypeID. The conversion is exact in both directions, so nothing is lost by keeping the column a native UUID type with its own index.

What is allowed in a prefix?

Lower-case letters, optionally separated by single underscores, up to 63 characters — so user and user_account are fine, and User, user1, _user and user__account are not. This tool refuses them rather than producing something a conforming parser would reject.

Why not just prefix a UUID with a string?

You could, and people do. What TypeID adds is a specification: a fixed encoding, fixed prefix rules and a defined mapping back to a UUID, so two systems agree on what the string means without a private convention.

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