skills/redis-development/rules/data-key-naming.md

title	impact	impactDescription	tags	description	alwaysApply
Use Consistent Key Naming Conventions	MEDIUM	Improved maintainability and debugging	keys, naming, conventions, prefixes	Use Consistent Key Naming Conventions	true

Use Consistent Key Naming Conventions

Well-structured key names improve code maintainability, debugging, and enable efficient key scanning.

Correct: Use colons as separators with a consistent hierarchy.

# Pattern: service:entity:id:attribute
user:1001:profile
user:1001:settings
order:2024:items
cache:api:users:list
session:abc123

Python (redis-py):

# Good: Short, meaningful key
redis.set("product:8361", cached_html)
page = redis.get("product:8361")

Java (Jedis):

// Good: Short, meaningful key derived from URL
jedis.set("product:8361", "<some cached HTML>");
String page = jedis.get("product:8361");

Incorrect: Inconsistent naming, spaces, or very long keys.

# These cause confusion and waste memory
User_1001_Profile
my key with spaces
com.mycompany.myapp.production.users.profile.data.1001

Java (Jedis):

// Bad: Using full URL as key wastes memory and slows comparisons
jedis.set("http://www.verylongurlkey.com/store/products/product.html?id=8361",
          "<some cached HTML>");

Key naming tips:

• Keep keys short but readable—they consume memory
• Consider key prefixes for multi-tenant applications
• Extract short identifiers from URLs or long strings rather than using the whole thing
• For large binary values, consider using a hash digest as the key instead of the value itself
• Use consistent separators (colons are conventional)

Reference: Redis Keys