We created uuidkey to encode UUIDv7s with Crockford Base32 into human-readable keys that are sortable, indexable, and actually pleasant to look at.

Alex Pliutau

DevOps

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Developers are often dissatisfied with the aesthetics and usability of conventional API keys. A startup focused on developer-first solutions created a new package called 'uuidkey' to solve this problem. This package encodes UUIDv7 using Crockford Base32 and adds dashes for symmetry and readability. These keys are secure, globally unique, sortable, and more visually appealing. The keys are also performant in PostgreSQL and designed for easy implementation.

Making Beautiful API Keys

Product keys for windows were meant to be typed by humans. API keys are meant to be copy/pasted by humans, or even better, managed by dedicated tools (terraform, vault, …), thus i don’t see the point of pretty-formatting an UUID. Where I worked we used to issue UUIDs as API keys and that was it, plus people know what to expect and thus they can easily see when they forget some characters.
I also don’t see the point of using UUIDs at all, as they have a low entropy. Creating a random 256bits base32-encoded string from a cryptographically secure source like /dev/urandom should be enough. If you need to reduce collision risks, concat the user ID and/or current time at the beginning (in binary form).
The only thing that could be cool would be having a small prefix in front that could be used to distinguish between providers, like <code>agentstation_XXXXXXXXXXXX</code>.

I don’t understand how people have so much time to waste. AI is right at our doorstep, ready to automate everything, and my Dude here is making the API keys look impressive.

I ain’t read the article yet, will do but i can tell you this is a thing.
I am currently creating some ugly looking api keys for a project.

No product key will ever surpass The People’s Key:
<code>FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8</code>
(this is cool though, thx for sharing)

I personally just base64 GUID.
also base64 jwt if i want to attach additional data.