URL Shortener

Introduction

This is an url shortener app. It consists of a backend ( built with NestJs and Prisma ) that handles the shortening logic and retrieving the urls. And a frontend ( built with React ) that have a form to create a new shortened url.

We use a Postgres db to save the long urls and the short ones.

When working with this project I've been using https://supabase.com/ as serverless database but you can use any other alternatives.

Getting started

Backend

• Create a new database
• Copy the .env.example to create a new file .env and change the database url.
• Install the dependencies:

npm install

• Generate the prisma client

npx prisma generate

• Create the database migrations

npx prisma migrate dev

Frontend

• Copy the .env.example to create a new file .env
• Install the dependencies:

npm install

Running the app

Run the backend:

npm run start:dev

Run the frontend:

npm run start:start

The frontend will be available at: http://localhost:3000/ ( unless you change that).

And the backend will be available at: http://localhost:4000/ ( unless you change that).

You will have also Swagger documentation available at http://localhost:4000/docs/.

Both the app and api restart on code change.

Improvements Roadmap

Feature Improvements

• Add user signup and login to see a list of generated short urls and generate a new one.
• Add rate limiting to avoid DDOS attacks.
• Expiration dates on URLs
• Clicks counter

Tech Improvements

• Dockerize the app
• Add testing to the backend and the frontend
• Add a form library to better handle the form when it will get bigger.
• Handle possible backend collisions.
• Improve frontend error handling