Naming Standards
Updated
Naming conventions usually live in a wiki nobody reads. Sqemo turns them into rules that run on every column: you model in business terms, and the physical names are generated from a word list your team controls.
The word list
The word list maps each logical word to its standard physical word — for
example “Customer” → cust, “Number” → no. Type the logical name
“Customer Number” and the physical column comes out cust_no, the same
way every time, for everyone. The word list can be imported and exported,
and Sqemo prevents duplicate words from slipping in.
Words are only half of it: what a whole term like “Customer Number” means lives in the business glossary, which is derived from the model rather than maintained separately.
Naming rules
Naming rules control how generated words are assembled — case style and
separators — and what happens when a logical name uses a word that is not
in the word list yet (unknown word mode):
- warn — flag unregistered words so they get added to the word list,
- keep — use the word as-is,
- romanize — transliterate it.
Overrides are explicit
Sometimes a physical name has to differ from the generated one. You can
override it — the override is marked (manual override) and excluded from
automatic regeneration, so a word-list change never silently rewrites it.
Overrides are visible, which matters: an invisible override is how naming
standards die.
Checking compliance
- In the app — validation flags logical names with unregistered words and physical names that drifted from the standard.
- In CI — the MCP/CLI package lints a project file and fails the build on violations:
npx sqemo-mcp lint schema.erd.json # exit code 1 on violationsOne standard for the whole team
With a workspace, the word list and naming rules become a team standard that every connected ERD generates names from. Members propose new words; the standard owner approves; approved words propagate to connected projects. See Team collaboration, or watch the two-minute video that follows one word from proposal to a renamed column.
While a project is connected, a status bar above the validation panel shows whether it is in sync with the standard and holds the entry points — pulling the latest version, the proposal queue, and the compliance view:
