{
  "id": "identifier/snowflake-discord",
  "family": "identifier",
  "slug": "snowflake-discord",
  "title": "Snowflake ID (Discord)",
  "summary": "A Discord Snowflake is a 64-bit, time-sortable id used for every user, message, channel, and guild. Layout (bits 63 down to 0): a 42-bit millisecond timestamp offset from the Discord epoch 1420070400000 ms (2015-01-01), a 5-bit internal worker id, a 5-bit internal process id, and a 12-bit per-process increment. It is a Twitter-Snowflake derivative that repartitions the machine bits and uses a different epoch.",
  "kind": "identifier",
  "aliases": [
    "Discord Snowflake",
    "discord id"
  ],
  "status": "de-facto",
  "verification": "verified",
  "tier": "C",
  "source_url": "https://docs.discord.com/developers/reference",
  "source_version": "Discord Developer Docs — Reference > Snowflakes (retrieved 2026-05-29)",
  "retrieved_date": "2026-05-29",
  "attribution": [
    {
      "claim_ref": "ext.bit_layout",
      "source_url": "https://docs.discord.com/developers/reference",
      "source_version": "retrieved 2026-05-29",
      "note": "Discord docs: 42-bit timestamp (bits 63-22) ms since epoch 1420070400000, 5-bit internal worker id (21-17), 5-bit internal process id (16-12), 12-bit increment (11-0)."
    },
    {
      "claim_ref": "ext.example",
      "source_url": "https://docs.discord.com/developers/reference",
      "source_version": "retrieved 2026-05-29",
      "note": "Discord docs worked example 175928847299117063 -> ts 41944705796, worker 1, process 0, increment 7."
    },
    {
      "claim_ref": "ext.notes",
      "source_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake_ID",
      "source_version": "retrieved 2026-05-29",
      "note": "Second independent source confirming the snowflake family, the Discord epoch, and that the 64-bit id is delivered as a string in JSON to avoid float precision loss."
    }
  ],
  "see_also": [
    "identifier/snowflake-twitter",
    "identifier/uuidv7"
  ],
  "ext_type": "identifier@1",
  "ext": {
    "spec": "Discord Snowflake (Discord Developer Docs)",
    "example": "175928847299117063",
    "bit_layout": [
      {
        "field": "timestamp",
        "bits": 42,
        "meaning": "Bits 63-22: milliseconds since the Discord epoch 1420070400000 (2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC)."
      },
      {
        "field": "worker_id",
        "bits": 5,
        "meaning": "Bits 21-17: internal worker id."
      },
      {
        "field": "process_id",
        "bits": 5,
        "meaning": "Bits 16-12: internal process id."
      },
      {
        "field": "increment",
        "bits": 12,
        "meaning": "Bits 11-0: counter incremented for every id generated on that process."
      }
    ],
    "length_bits": 64,
    "sortable": true,
    "encoding": "decimal uint64 (delivered as a JSON string to avoid 53-bit float precision loss)",
    "notes": [
      "Discord epoch is 1420070400000 ms (2015-01-01); add it back to the timestamp field to get Unix ms. Discord uses 42 timestamp bits (vs Twitter's 41).",
      "Worked example 175928847299117063 decodes to timestamp 41944705796 (-> 2016-04-30 11:18:25.796 UTC), worker 1, process 0, increment 7.",
      "A Twitter-Snowflake derivative: it splits the 10 machine bits as 5-bit worker + 5-bit process rather than 5-bit datacenter + 5-bit worker, and uses the 2015 Discord epoch.",
      "Sorts by creation time because the timestamp is the high-order field; always treat as a string in JSON (exceeds JS 53-bit safe integers)."
    ]
  },
  "updated": "2026-05-29T00:00:00Z"
}