🎲 Random Name as a Service (RNaaS)

This project exists to answer a simple question well:

“Can we provide useful randomness without unnecessary complexity?”

The answer is yes—by keeping the surface area small and the expectations clear.

A lightweight HTTP-accessible service (and an self-hosted API) that returns a random, human-readable name composed of a characteristic and an animal. Perfect for naming variables, resources, and temporary entities or in identifiers, demos, placeholders, and testing.

⚙️ What It Does

Each request returns a randomly generated name in the form:

<characteristic>-<animal>

The vocabulary is sourced from curated datasets of real English characteristics and real animal names.

📜 API Contract

Base URL

https://rn.kerneltalks.com/

Endpoint

GET /

Response

{
  "name": "<string>"
}

• Always returns JSON
• Stateless
• No parameters required
• No authentication

🗄️ Data Sources

The service uses two vocabularies:

• data/animals.json
• data/characteristics.json

Each file contains a fixed set of real words. They can be extended or replaced without changing the API contract.

▶️ Usage

Browser

https://rn.kerneltalks.com/

curl

curl https://rn.kerneltalks.com/

Example output:

{"name":"resilient-wolf"}

Each request is independent.

🗂️ Repository Structure

random-names-as-a-service/
├── .dockerignore
├── .gitignore
├── assets/
│   ├── rnaas.png
├── Dockerfile
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── data/
│   ├── animals.json
│   └── characteristics.json
├── index.html
├── package.json
└── src/
    └── index.js

🐳 Self Hosting on Docker

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/slavhate/random-name-as-a-service
cd random-name-as-a-service

2. Build it

docker build -t rnaas .

3. Run it

docker run -p 3000:3000 rnaas

4. Use it

curl http://localhost:3000

Response

{"name":"softspoken-hippopotamus"}

📐 Guarantees and Non-Guarantees

Guaranteed

• Valid JSON response

• Human-readable output

• No state retained between requests

• No rate limits for typical usage

Not Guaranteed

• Deterministic output

• Uniqueness across requests

• Stability across time or clients

This service favors simplicity over strict guarantees.

🧩 Extensibility

Common extensions include:

• adding more vocabularies

• introducing optional prefixes or suffixes

• filtering by category

• client-side seeding for repeatability

The core contract remains unchanged.

📄 License

MIT License.