Golinks

Golinks is a lightweight, self-hosted URL shortener that turns short keywords into full URLs. Type go/keyword in your browser and get redirected instantly — no external services required.


Quickstart

Get up and running in under a minute:

Go to the releases page and download the latest binary for your platform.

Or install with kelp:

# 1. Download the latest binary from the releases page (or use kelp)
kelp add crhuber/golinks --install

# 2. Start the server
golinks serve

# 3. Open in your browser
open http://localhost:8998

That’s it. Golinks uses SQLite by default and stores everything at ~/.golinks/golinks.db (the directory is created automatically).

For the best experience, install the Chrome extension so you can type go/keyword directly in your address bar.

About

Inspired by Google’s internal golink system — where Benjamin Staffin introduced the “go/” domain so Googlers could use shortlinks like “go/link” (described as “AOL keywords for the corporate network”).

I built this to scratch my own itch and to learn Go. It runs locally on localhost with a SQLite database, designed to be lightweight and simple. Inspired by @thesephist’s tools and the concept of building software for yourself. The backend is written in Go, the frontend in Vue.js as a single page app.

Installation

Binary

Go to the releases page and download the latest binary for your platform.

Or install with kelp:

kelp add crhuber/golinks --install

Docker

docker build . -t crhuber/golinks:latest
docker run -p 8998:8998 crhuber/golinks

Configuration

All configuration can be set via CLI flags, environment variables, or a GOLINKS.toml/GOLINKS.yaml config file in the working directory.

Flag	Env Variable	Default	Description
-d, --db	GOLINKS_DB	~/.golinks/golinks.db	Database DSN or SQLite file path
-t, --dbtype	GOLINKS_DBTYPE	sqlite	Database type: sqlite, postgres, or mysql
-p, --port	GOLINKS_PORT	8998	Port to run the server on

Using a different database

By default, golinks uses SQLite with no setup required. To use PostgreSQL or MySQL instead, set the database type and DSN:

# MySQL
export GOLINKS_DBTYPE=”mysql”
export GOLINKS_DB=”user:pass@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/dbname?charset=utf8mb4&parseTime=True&loc=Local”

# PostgreSQL
export GOLINKS_DBTYPE=”postgres”
export GOLINKS_DB=”host=localhost user=golinks password=secret dbname=golinks port=5432 sslmode=disable”

Run at startup (macOS)

To start golinks automatically on boot, use the included launchd plist:

# Edit the plist to set the correct path to the golinks binary
vi io.intra.golinks.plist
cp io.intra.golinks.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.intra.golinks.plist
launchctl start io.intra.golinks

See launchd.info for more details. Logs are written to /tmp/golinks.log.

Browser Extension (Recommended)

The easiest way to use golinks is with the included Chrome extension. It lets you type go/keyword directly in your address bar — no DNS or port forwarding hacks needed.

Install

1. Open chrome://extensions in Chrome
2. Enable Developer mode (toggle in the top right)
3. Click Load unpacked and select the extension/ directory from this repo

Usage

• Direct navigation — Type go/keyword in your address bar and press Enter. The extension intercepts this and redirects through your golinks server.
• Omnibox search — Type go then press Tab (or Space) to activate the omnibox. Start typing to see live search suggestions.
• Popup search — Click the extension icon to open a quick search popup with live results.

Extension settings

Right-click the extension icon and select Options to configure:

• Server URL — Address of your golinks server (default: http://localhost:8998)
• Intercept Prefix — The keyword that triggers URL interception (default: go). Change this to g, link, jump, etc. if you prefer a different shortcut. The omnibox keyword is always go regardless of this setting.

Alternative Setup (Without Extension)

If you prefer not to use the browser extension, you can set up DNS and port forwarding so that go/keyword resolves natively in your browser.

DNS setup

Automatic: Use dev-proxy.

Manual: Add a host record pointing to your golinks server, then add .internal to your search domains:

# /etc/hosts
127.0.0.2       go.internal

System Preferences > Network > Advanced > DNS > Search Domains: add .internal

Port redirection (so you don’t need :8998 in the URL)

Automatic: Use dev-proxy.

Manual: Create a loopback alias and a port forwarding rule:

# Create loopback alias
sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.2

# Persist after reboot
sudo cp io.intra.ifconfig.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/

# Forward port 80 → 8998
echo “rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to 127.0.0.2 port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8998” | sudo pfctl -ef -

To remove: sudo pfctl -F all -f /etc/pf.conf

Usage

Creating links

Open http://localhost:8998 in your browser to view, create, and manage links through the web UI.

Programmatic links

Create short links that inject variables by using {*}. For example, a link with keyword gh and URL https://github.com/{*} lets you type go/gh/torvalds to go directly to https://github.com/torvalds.

Troubleshooting

• If you change the server port, make sure the frontend is also configured to connect to the same port.

Developing

I use air for live reloading during development:

air

Contributing

If you find bugs, please open an issue first. If you have feature requests, I probably will not honor it because this project is being built mostly to suit my personal workflow and preferences.