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PlanetScale logoPlanetScale · Feature trail

API Identifier Strategy

1 post · Mar 2022

What this trail covers

PlanetScale's API identifier strategy has evolved to use NanoIDs for public-facing identifiers. This decision was driven by the need for shorter, more user-friendly IDs compared to UUIDs, while maintaining a low probability of collisions and ease of generation across multiple programming languages. The implementation involves adding a `public_id` column to database schemas and using concerns in Rails and dedicated packages in Go to auto-generate these IDs. This approach enhances developer experience by making IDs easier to select and use in URLs.

All PlanetScale trails
  1. Why we chose NanoIDs for PlanetScale’s APIThis post details the decision to adopt NanoIDs for PlanetScale's API public identifiers. It explains the trade-offs between UUIDs and NanoIDs, focusing on URL length and selectability. The post provides specific implementation details for generating NanoIDs in Ruby on Rails, including schema changes and a shared `concern` for auto-generation with retry logic. It also demonstrates NanoID generation in Go. The collision probability calculation using the NanoID collision tool is presented, along with the chosen alphabet and length for PlanetScale's use case.