TypeIDs are a modern, type-safe extension of UUIDv7.

TypeIDs are canonically encoded as lowercase strings consisting of three parts:

1. A type prefix
2. An underscore '_' separator
3. A 128-bit UUIDv7 encoded as a 26-character string in base32.

Here's an example of a TypeID of type user:

  user_2x4y6z8a0b1c2d3e4f5g6h7j8k
  └──┘ └────────────────────────┘
  type       uuid (base32)

• Type-safe: you can't accidentally use a user ID where a post ID is expected. When debugging, you can immediately understand what type of entity a TypeID refers to thanks to the type prefix.
• Standards-based: they are based on the upcoming UUIDv7 standard. If you remove the type information, you get a valid UUIDv7.
• They are K-sortable and can be used as the primary key in a database. Entirely random global ids generally suffer from poor database locality.
• Thoughtful encoding: the base32 encoding is URL safe, case-insensitive, avoids ambiguous characters, can be selected for copy-pasting by double-clicking, and is a more compact encoding than the traditional hex encoding used by UUIDs (26 characters vs 36 characters).

• UUIDv7 - The upcoming UUID standard that TypeIDs are based on.

Alternatives to UUIDv7 that are also worth considering (but not type-safe like TypeIDs):

• xid
• ulid
• ksuid