netlify-shortener
Uses netlify's redirect functionality to make a personal URL shortener. Works beautifully :)
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## The problem
You want a URL shortener for your custom domain and you want an easy way to
create and update URLs but you don't want to pay hundreds of dollars a year.
## This solution
This relies on [Netlify's](https://www.netlify.com)
[`_redirects`](https://www.netlify.com/docs/redirects/) file for building a
super simple URL shortener where the URLs are managed on GitHub and Netlify
handles the redirecting for you.
## Table of Contents
- [Installation](#installation)
- [Usage](#usage)
- [Shell Function](#shell-function)
- [Shell Agnostic](#shell-agnostic)
- [Bash](#bash)
- [Inspiration](#inspiration)
- [Other Solutions](#other-solutions)
- [Issues](#issues)
- [π Bugs](#-bugs)
- [π‘ Feature Requests](#-feature-requests)
- [Contributors β¨](#contributors-)
- [LICENSE](#license)
## Installation
This module is distributed via [npm][npm] which is bundled with [node][node] and
should be installed as one of your project's `dependencies`:
```
npm install --save netlify-shortener
```
## Usage
- [Watch a demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL6paXyx6hM&list=PLV5CVI1eNcJgCrPH_e6d57KRUTiDZgs0u)
- [View the example repo](https://github.com/kentcdodds/netlify-shortener-example)
Your project should have a `_redirects` file that looks like this:
```
/example http://example.com
# fallback
/* https://your-website.com
```
This module exposes a binary that you should use in your `package.json` scripts.
You also need to add a `homepage` to your `package.json`:
```json
{
"homepage": "https://jsair.io",
"scripts": {
"shorten": "netlify-shortener"
}
}
```
Then you can run:
```
npm run shorten # simply formats your _redirects file
npm run shorten https://yahoo.com # generates a short code and adds it for you
npm run shorten https://github.com gh # adds gh as a short URL for you
```
The `netlify-shortener` does a few things:
1. generates a short code if one is not provided
2. validates your URL is a real URL
3. adds the URL to the top of `_redirects`
4. runs a git commit and push (this will trigger netlify to deploy your new
redirect)
5. Copies the short URL to your clipboard
Netlify's deploys are normally fast enough that the new URL should be deployed
by the time you've shared it to someone.
