URL Shortener

A full stack URL shortener with click analytics. No external dependencies or database installs required — it runs with just Node.js.

Features

• Shorten any valid http(s) URL into a short code
• Optional custom short codes (e.g. /my-link)
• Click tracking per link
• List, view, and delete existing links
• Clean, responsive UI (no frontend framework/build step needed)

Tech stack

• Backend: Node.js core http module (no Express) — see server.js
• "Database": a local db.json file, created automatically on first run
• Frontend: plain HTML/CSS/JS in public/

Everything runs with plain node, so there's nothing to install.

Getting started

node server.js

Then open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

That's it — db.json will be created automatically the first time you shorten a link.

(You can also run npm start, which does the same thing.)

Project structure

url-shortener/
├── server.js        # HTTP server, routing, and all API logic
├── package.json
├── db.json          # created automatically — your data lives here
└── public/
    ├── index.html   # page structure
    ├── style.css    # styling
    └── script.js    # frontend logic (fetch calls, DOM updates)

API reference

Method	Route	Description
POST	/api/shorten	Create a short URL. Body: { url, customCode? }
GET	/api/urls	List all short URLs
GET	/api/urls/:code	Get details/stats for one short code
DELETE	/api/urls/:code	Delete a short URL
GET	/:code	Redirect to the original URL (increments click count)

Example: create a short link

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/shorten \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://www.example.com/some/very/long/path"}'

Response:

{
  "shortCode": "aB3xQ9",
  "shortUrl": "http://localhost:3000/aB3xQ9",
  "originalUrl": "https://www.example.com/some/very/long/path"
}

Ideas to extend this project

• Swap db.json for a real database (SQLite via better-sqlite3, Postgres, etc.) once you have npm access — the storage logic is isolated in loadDB() / saveDB() in server.js, so it's a contained change.
• Add user accounts so people can manage only their own links
• Add link expiration dates
• Generate a QR code for each short link
• Add basic rate limiting to /api/shorten
• Track referrer/location data on each click for richer analytics