vrk moniker
About
Generates memorable adjective-noun names like “bold-falcon” or “calm-otter” from a curated word list. Useful for pipeline runs, temp directories, and job labels where humans need to reference things by name. Deterministic with a seed, and no duplicates within a batch.
The problem
During an incident you have six parallel pipeline runs. Someone on the call says “the failing one is 7f3a… no wait, 7f3b…” and everyone is looking at the wrong logs. UUIDs work as identifiers but fail as labels humans reference under pressure.
Before and after
Before
RUN_ID=$(uuidgen | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
echo "starting run $RUN_ID"
# incident call: "which run?" "7f3a9c2e... no, 7f3b..."
# six runs open, all starting with 7f3
After
RUN_ID=$(vrk moniker --seed "$BUILD_NUMBER")
echo "starting run $RUN_ID"
# incident call: "which run?" "bold-falcon"
Example
vrk moniker --seed 42
Exit codes
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Success |
| 1 | Word pool exhausted for requested count |
| 2 | –count less than 1, –words less than 2 |
Flags
| Flag | Short | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
--count | -n | int | Number of names to generate |
--separator | string | Word separator | |
--words | int | Words per name (minimum 2) | |
--seed | int64 | Random seed for deterministic output | |
--json | -j | bool | Emit JSON per name: {name, words} |
--quiet | -q | bool | Suppress stderr output |