nowfound

Dev tools · August 20, 2024

UPID – a unique ID with built-in prefix

The discussion about what to use for database keys has come up a few times on HN. Integers or UUID, or maybe ULID/UUIDv7 with a time component. One that also comes up is prefixes (as used by Stripe, most famously). The biggest downside (imo) of the Stripe approach is that you either have to store them as strings, which isn't great, or strip/prepend in your API layer. So I made a new thing called UPID. It's most similar to ULID, as it includes a time-component (but with lower precision) and also encodes to a base32 alphabet. But it also includes a 20-bit prefix (allowing four…

UPID – a unique ID with built-in prefix launched on August 20, 2024 with 5 votes, #2,614 of 5,471 launches that month and more than 50% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 2 years on.

What it does

Unique IDs with a built-in prefix. Contribute to carderne/upid development by creating an account on GitHub.

In the maker’s words, at launch

The discussion about what to use for database keys has come up a few times on HN. Integers or UUID, or maybe ULID/UUIDv7 with a time component. One that also comes up is prefixes (as used by Stripe, most famously). The biggest downside (imo) of the Stripe approach is that you either have to store them as…

Does a similar job

all alternatives →
  • 128-bit, roughly-ordered, URL-safe UUIDs2021 · github.com · ▲205

    Timeflake is a 128-bit, roughly-ordered, URL-safe UUID. - anthonynsimon/timeflake

  • Prefixed, dual-token, base58 encoded API Keys2022 · github.com · ▲100

    Module for generating a prefixed API Key. Contribute to seamapi/prefixed-api-key development by creating an account on GitHub.

  • InstantDBApr 2026 · instantdb.com · ▲320

    Complete backend with auth and storage in one prompt

  • Generate Version 7 UUID's for a Timestamp2025 · uuidv7.org · ▲20

    I use UUIDv7's in multiple places as an efficient index in Postgres. When querying this data I usually need to be able to query between a time range so wanted to have a quick way to generate a reference ID that I could use in a BETWEEN query. All the simple, fast tools I found online were focused on generating bulk ids or converting from an ID to a timestamp rather than the other way around, so I wrote one myself. For example if I wanted to find everything that happened between 2025-03-11T13:00:00.000Z and 2025-03-11T13:59:59.999Z I can type in the timestamp, select earliest (or latest) to…

  • sleekid2024 · github.com · ▲9

    The unique ID for the modern software. Stripe inspired.

  • Placekey2020 · placekey.io · ▲140

    Unique ID for all physical places

More dev tools this month

the category →
  • /dev/null▲490

    a social network for devs

    Dev tools · 4d ago · dev-null.sh

  • open-source IDE for thoughtful software design. Contribute to devdotfast/whiteboard development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Dev tools · 28d ago · github.com

  • Contribute to reladraw/reladraw development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Dev tools · 26d ago · github.com

  • OpenBot▲362

    Grok Bot alternative: free, local, open-source, multiplayer

    Dev tools · 24d ago · openbot.run

  • Talanoa▲346

    Hi HN, I’m a fullstack developer, and honestly, I’ve lost count of how many side projects I’ve worked on over the years. But one idea kept coming back to me: a different kind of email client. It first came to me in 2014: “What if we could handle emails more like conversations?” Every year, I’d revisit this concept in my “Build Notes.” Ten years later, no one had built exactly what I had in mind — so I finally decided to do it myself. That’s how Talanoa was born. I wanted something focused on people, not timelines. I was tired of marking messages as unread just to remember to reply later, or…

    Dev tools · 21d ago · talanoa.email

  • CoreSpeed▲332

    One MCP for everything your agents need: apps, memory, tools

    Dev tools · 29d ago · corespeed.io

Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part

Launched alongside, August 2024

the whole month →
  • Wordware▲9,848

    Your tool for building AI agents with natural language

    AI · 2024 · wordware.ai

  • If Youtube had actual channels.

    Life & fun · 2024 · ytch.xyz

  • Me.bot▲1,627

    The inspiring companion for your life

    AI · 2024 · me.bot

  • Upmetrics AI▲1,197

    Business plan & financial forecast using AI

    Work · 2024 · upmetrics.co

  • Jupitrr AI▲1,195

    Jupitrr AI turns raw talking videos into scroll-stopping content for coaches and consultants. Research, script, record, edit, and publish in one app.

    AI · 2024 · jupitrr.com

  • Hey there HN! We’re Joe and Stopa, and today we’re open sourcing InstantDB, a client-side database that makes it easy to build real-time and collaborative apps like Notion and Figma. Building modern apps these days involves a lot of schleps. For a basic CRUD app you need to spin up servers, wire up endpoints, integrate auth, add permissions, and then marshal data from the backend to the frontend and back again. If you want to deliver a buttery smooth user experience, you’ll need to add optimistic updates and rollbacks. We do these steps over and over for every feature we build, which can…

    Dev tools · 2024 · github.com