README.md

URL Shortener

A small URL shortening service. Paste in a long URL, get back a short one that redirects to the original.

Backend is FastAPI + PostgreSQL, frontend is React. The whole thing runs with Docker Compose.

Running it

# inside backend directory
cp .env.example .env

# inside root directory
docker compose up

Then open http://localhost:8000.

How it works

Short codes are 7-character random strings (alphanumeric), generated with Python's secrets module so they aren't guessable.

Routes:

• POST /api/url — create a short URL
• GET /api/url/{code} — look up where a code points
• GET /{code} — redirect (302)

Local development

Backend:

cd backend
poetry install
poetry run start

Frontend:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The Vite dev server proxies /api to the backend, so you just hit http://localhost:5173.

You'll need a Postgres instance running and a DATABASE_URL set — see .env.example.

Tests

cd backend
poetry run pytest