AlphaDec: A human-readable alternative to ULID/Snowflake IDs

Summary

AlphaDec A timezone-agnostic, readable time format for humans, machines, and AI. Live Clock Example: AlphaDec: 2025_L0V3 (or full canonical: 2025_L0V3_000000 ) (or full canonical: ) UTC: June 5th, 2025 at 13:45 AlphaDec is a shared global timestamp. If an event is scheduled for N0A0 , every participant worldwide knows what that means — without converting timezones or formats. AlphaDec in action inside an AI chat. Every ~7.8-minute beat ( t ) triggers a new memory summary. Instead of timestamps, the model sees structured time tokens like N1U0 . It doesn’t just label time — it thinks with it. AlphaDec encodes any UTC timestamp into a readable string that sorts chronologically. This simple concept unlocks a host of powerful emergent properties. Key Properties Lexically Sortable : Natively time-sortable in any system that can sort strings alphabetically. Perfect for database primary keys. : Natively time-sortable in any system that can sort strings alphabetically. Perfect for database primary keys. Time-Series Friendly : Truncate the string for efficient time-range queries. 2024_M finds everything in that ~14-day period. : Truncate the string for efficient time-range queries. finds everything in that ~14-day period. Human-Readable & Compact : Understand a timestamp's approximate place in the year at a glance. : Understand a timestamp's approximate place in the year at a glance. LLM & AI-Native : Its structured, tokenizable nature makes it powerful primitive for time-based reasoning, prompt engineering, and log analysis in AI systems. : Its structured, tokenizable nature makes it powerful primitive for time-based reasoning, prompt engineering, and log analysis in AI systems. Collision-free with ISO time: AlphaDec avoids datetime-like formats, so you never confuse an AlphaDec timestamp for a local time. How It Works The AlphaDec string is composed of several parts: YYYY_PaBt_MMMMMM YYYY : The UTC year. : The UTC year. P (Period) : The year is divided into 26 periods, repr...