Identifiers for MHCLG owned registers

[colmjude]

How should we decide on the identifiers to use in registers owned by MHCLG?

An entry in one of these registers usually has a Name field and a field intended to be the id, which we derive from the name. But there are numerous ways to do it.

• kebab type the name e.g. Local Plan to local-plan
• shorten to initial codes e.g. Local Plan to lp or LP
• use a random UUID
• ?

We don't have an overwhelming preference but we do favour an approach like the first couple of ways that maintains some semantic value.

For now, we have opted for the kebab approach because it has become our house style and we are trying to maintain consistency.

[colmjude]

A potential issue with the approach we take is if the Name field is long. E.g. conservation and enhancement of the natural environment is a field in the development policy category register.

Should we kebab it to conservation-and-enhancement-of-the-natural-environment or shorten it to something more succinct such as conservation-natural-environment?