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How to design a URL shortener system

Study Shortlane, an end-to-end design case study for a URL shortener with ID generation, redirects, caching, analytics.

  • Difficulty Intermediate
  • Parts 10
  • Stack ID generation, redirects, caching, analytics

What you are learning

Shortlane is an end-to-end design case study for a URL shortener. The teaching focus is URL Shortener (ID generation, redirects, caching, analytics).

Work in order. Early parts set vocabulary and environment; later parts assume the earlier checkpoints.

How to use these lessons

Read the goal, open the matching GitHub folder, complete the lab or exercises, then return for the explanation. If a command fails, check you are in the numbered folder first.

Open the Shortlane GitHub repo →

Parts in order

Each chapter below is one checkpoint in this track.