LinkCraft

LinkCraft is a fictional URL shortening service.
It serves as a simple example of a web application built in PHP with Laravel 10.

Scope

• Guests can register an account and login.
  • The application will not verify or send emails.
• Users can provide a single URL to create a shortened link for.
• Users can upload a batch of URLs to be shortened via a CSV file.
• Visits to the shortened URLs will be tracked.
• Users can view their list of shortened URLs and analytics for them.
• Shortened URLs will work at the site root and all contain an underscore prefix.
  • e.g. http://localhost:8000/_abc123

Potential Improvements

• Allow users to provide custom slugs for the shortened URLs.
• Allow users to deactivate/reactivate links.
• Allow users to export their link data as a CSV file.
• Improved URL validation (blocking non-HTTP/HTTPS URLs).
• Search and sort functionality for the list of links.
• Move hits data to a separate analytics table and add additional metrics.

Setup/Usage

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Composer 2+
• NodeJS 20+

Local Development

These instructions assume the above requirements are met and that commands are run from the root project directory.

composer run local
npm install
npm run build
php artisan serve

The application will be available at localhost:8000.

The default database is located at database/database.sqlite.

Note: Make sure the APP_URL variable in .env is updated if the application is being served from a different URL.

Testing

php artisan test