nicelink #

🤖 This code was written by a human-led AI agent.

A little baby link shortener. Zero trackers, server-side URL encryption.

Usage #

Use the web frontend at t.l.lc, or make a POST request:

# Get a random alias
curl -X POST 'https://t.l.lc/?url=https://example.com/'
# → {"short_link":"/qlbUh"}

# Optionally specify a custom alias
curl -X POST 'https://t.l.lc/?url=https://example.com/&alias=example'
# → {"short_link":"/example"}

Building #

go build -o nicelink ./cmd/nicelink

# Cross-compile
GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o nicelink ./cmd/nicelink

Deploying (Fly.io) #

The app runs on Fly.io with its state on a persistent volume, so links survive restarts and redeploys:

• Dockerfile builds a minimal image (PORT=8080, DATA_DIR=/data)
• fly.toml mounts the volume nicelink_data at /data and runs exactly one machine (bbolt holds an exclusive lock on the DB file, so it cannot scale horizontally)

fly volumes create nicelink_data --size 1 --region iad -a possdog-nicelink --yes
fly ips allocate-v4 -a possdog-nicelink --yes
./deploy.sh                  # vet+test, deploy, then verify: https://possdog-nicelink.fly.dev/

After changing source code, run ./deploy.sh. It refuses to deploy unless fly.toml still mounts the nicelink_data volume at /data, and after deploying it confirms the volume is attached and still contains link_shortener.bolt + secret.key — so the production database is left intact.

Both link_shortener.bolt and secret.key live in /data; losing either the volume or the secret loses every link. To import an existing database, run ./clone_database.sh from the directory containing the old link_shortener.bolt and secret.key — it resolves the machine ID via fly status --json + jq, stages each file under a .incoming name (flyctl sftp put takes one file at a time and never overwrites), swaps them in over SSH, and restarts the machine.