Shorty

Shorty is a simple URL shortening microservice that supports two shortening providers: bit.ly and tinyurl.com. It's easy to use and extendable: if you want to add a new provider, you only have to implement shortener interface and change the configuration file.

It has an endpoint: POST /shortlinks, which can be used for shortening purposes. This endpoint accepts JSON with the following schema:

param	type	required	description
url	string	Y	The URL to shorten
provider	string	N	The provider to use for shortening

Suppose the client hasn't specified any provider on request. In that case, the service will use the first provider from the available ones (bitly or tinyurl, by default), which will successfully return shortened URL after processing.

Its response is a Shortlink resource containing the following:

param	type	required	description
url	string	Y	The original URL
link	string	Y	The shortened link

For example:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "link": "https://bit.ly/e2142sa"
}

Also, it returns a JSON response with a sensible HTTP status in case of errors or failures.

Test coverage is 97%.

Running guide

1. Install project requirements.

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Set up environment variables.

variable name	type	required	default	description
SHORTY_BITLY_API_KEY	string	Y		Bitly service API key.
SHORTY_BITLY_GROUP_GUID	string	Y		Bitly group GUID for shortening.
SHORTY_BITLY_URL	string	N	https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4	Bitly service base URL.
SHORTY_BITLY_DOMAIN	string	N	None	Bitly domain for shortening base URL.
SHORTY_BITLY_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	string	N	1.0	Bitly service request timeout.
SHORTY_TINYURL_URL	string	N	https://tinyurl.com	Tinyurl base url.
SHORTY_TINYURL_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	string	N	1.0	Tinyurl request timeout.
SHORTY_DEBUG	string	N	True	Run Shorty in debug mode or not.
SHORTY_TESTING	string	N	False	Run Shorty in testing mode or not.
SHORTY_LOGGING_LEVEL	string	N	DEBUG	Shorty service logging level.
SHORTY_DEFAULT_HOST	string	N	0.0.0.0	Default Shorty service host.
SHORTY_DEFAULT_PORT	string	N	8080	Default Shorty service port.

2. (Optional). For testing purposes, you can create the .env file with the following content in the project's root directory.

SHORTY_BITLY_URL='https://mockbin.org/bin/383dbfe8-947f-4020-ba72-0a7366e95fbe'  # mocked bitly endpoint
SHORTY_TINYURL_URL='https://mockbin.org/bin/f011a7bc-3544-4eb7-a185-4b2ef6b99e33'  # mocked tinyurl endpoint
SHORTY_BITLY_API_KEY='some_api_key'
SHORTY_BITLY_GROUP_GUID='some_group_id'

3. Run the Shorty service using the following command from the project's root directory:

python run.py --host <SOME_HOST> --post <SOME_PORT>

--host and --port are optional and will use $SHORTY_DEFAULT_HOST and $SHORTY_DEFAULT_PORT respectively by default.

4. Enjoy shortening!

Running guide

You can access Swagger documentation for Shorty by going to the apidocs/ endpoint.