Redis Core

Foundational guidance for modeling data in Redis. Covers data-type selection and key-name conventions — the two decisions that most directly drive memory, performance, and maintainability.

1. Choose the right data structure

Pick the type that matches the access pattern, not just the shape of the data.

Common anti-pattern: stuffing a flat object into a serialized string. Updating one field means fetch + parse + mutate + rewrite. Use a Hash instead.

See references/choose-data-structure.md for full rationale and Python/Java examples.

2. Use consistent key names

Use colon-separated segments with a stable hierarchy:

{entity}:{id}:{attribute}
user:1001:profile
user:1001:settings
order:2024:items
session:abc123
article:987:likes
game:space-invaders:leaderboard

Rules of thumb:

• Lowercase, colon-separated. No spaces, no mixed casing (User_1001_Profile is bad).
• Keep keys short but readable — keys live in memory and appear in every command.
• Don't use full URLs or long strings as keys. Extract a short identifier, or use a hash digest of the URL.
• Prefix for multi-tenancy (tenant:42:user:7:cart) so scans and ACLs can target a tenant cleanly.
• Be consistent. Pick one convention per service and apply it across all keys.

See references/key-naming.md for cleanup examples and edge cases.

References

• Redis: Choosing the right data type
• Redis: Keys