I would agree with that. Also, I don't really want API keys and such to be generally pretty. If things that have no business being end-user facing are ugly the

I would agree with that. Also, I don't really want API keys and such to be generally pretty. If things that have no business being end-user facing are ugly then they are less likely to be allowed to accidentally become end-user facing. If being pretty or otherwise user-friendly is a priority, then I'd go with trying to make them readable/pronounceable rather than shorter, even if that actually makes them longer. There are numerous projects out there¹²³ for doing just that. You could even use the 256-word example³ with multiple small dictionaries, and give people a choice from various possibilities that map to the same number. ---- [1] https://github.com/Debdut/uuid-readable https://github.com/Debdut/uuid-readable [2] https://github.com/Martichou/uuid-readable-rs https://github.com/Martichou/uuid-readable-rs [3] https://github.com/anton-bot/guid-in-words https://github.com/anton-bot/guid-in-words