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Resolving aliases

Who is an alias​

$ pseudonym whois A-7K3F9Q
Ana Pérez
  alias A-7K3F9Q
  services moodle@campus.example.org
  first seen 2026-10-09T18:02:11.000Z, last seen 2026-10-09T19:40:05.000Z
  • The first line is the display name, alone, so a script can take it with head -1.
  • Aliases are case-insensitive: pseudonym whois a-7k3f9q works.
  • An alias that was linked into another one shows the person it now resolves to, with (also A-…) after the alias.
  • An unknown alias prints a message on stderr and exits with code 2.

The directory only knows the people your programs have met on this machine (or on a machine whose directory you copied). It doesn't need the program or its data source: it works offline.

The aliases of a person​

$ pseudonym alias "ana perez"
A-7K3F9Q  Ana Pérez  (moodle@campus.example.org)
A-M2X8RD  Ana Pérez  (mail@school.example.org)
  • Everyone whose display name contains what you type, ignoring case and accents: alias lucia lists every Lucía.
  • One line per person: alias, name and the services where they were met. The same person in two services usually has two aliases (see per-service aliases).
  • Nobody matching: exit code 2.

A whole service at once​

To cross aliases with something else (a gradebook export, a list the model produced), get a service's people as CSV:

pseudonym aliases --service moodle@campus.example.org > people.csv

Without --service, it uses the default service.

alias,name
A-7K3F9Q,Ana Pérez
A-TA8D1J,Hugo Estrella
A-Q30XC4,"Ferrándiz, Lucía"

The CSV goes to stdout and a warning to stderr: the library never writes names to a file by itself, so the file exists only because you redirected it. It holds names in clear: keep it away from agents (and out of any folder an agent can read), and delete it when done.