Open source · API
LinkForge
A URL shortening API with authentication, API keys, asynchronous and anonymized click tracking, and analytics. Designed to stay fast and handle load, even when redirects pile up.
// Context
Why this project
A URL shortener is a deceptively simple classic: easy to do badly, hard to do well. Behind a simple redirect lie questions of performance, security and audience measurement.
I wanted to make it a short-scoped but back-end demanding project: a real API, authenticated, instrumented, and designed to handle traffic without slowing down the redirect.
// Problem
What needed to be solved
Three requirements shaped the entire architecture:
- The redirect must stay instant. Measuring a click must never slow down the user following the link.
- Useful stats, without tracking. Count and qualify clicks while anonymizing personal data.
- Programmable and secure access. Authentication and API keys to integrate the service elsewhere.
// Solution
The approach taken
The core of the system separates the hot path (the redirect) from the cold path (analytics). On each click, the API immediately responds with the redirect and delegates click processing to a queue, consumed in the background.
Result: the end user never pays the cost of measurement, and statistics are built reliably, at their own pace.
// Technical decisions
The choices that matter
A framework built for speed
Fastify offers minimal per-request overhead: ideal for a service whose primary function is to respond fast, thousands of times.
Asynchronous click tracking
Each click is pushed into a BullMQ queue (on Redis) and processed outside the response path: enrichment, anonymization and aggregation happen in the background.
Durable & queryable data
Postgres stores links, API keys and aggregated statistics; Prisma secures access with strict typing shared across the API.
// Result
What it delivers
A complete, documented API that concretely demonstrates how I approach back-end work: performance first, reliable measurement second, privacy by design.