🔗 ShortURLs (URL shortener)

A small, modern URL shortener web app with user accounts and Google OAuth. This README follows a friendly, emoji-led format with everything you need to run, develop, and deploy the project.

✨ Features

• User accounts with email/password
• Google sign-in (OAuth2)
• Create, list and delete short URLs
• Private (per-user) and public short-links (fallback)
• Simple EJS-based dashboard and views

🚀 Tech stack

• Node.js + Express
• PostgreSQL (pg)
• Passport.js (local + passport-google-oauth2)
• EJS templating
• shortid for key generation

📦 Installation & Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v16+)
• npm
• PostgreSQL

1. Clone the repository

git clone <your-repo-url>
cd shortURLS

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Environment configuration Copy .env.example to .env and fill the values:

cp .env.example .env

Required variables in .env:

• PGHOST, PGDATABASE, PGUSER, PGPASSWORD
• SECRET (session secret)
• GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID, GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET
• CALLBACK_URL (e.g. http://localhost:3000/auth/google/dashboard)
• NODE_ENV

Make sure CALLBACK_URL exactly matches the Authorized Redirect URI in Google Cloud Console.

4. Start the app

npm start

Open: http://localhost:3000

🌐 API & Routes

Method	Path	Description
GET	/	Home
GET	/register	Register page
POST	/register	Create account
GET	/login	Login page
POST	/login	Local login
GET	/auth/google	Start Google OAuth
GET	/auth/google/dashboard	Google callback
GET	/dashboard	User dashboard (auth)
GET	/submit	Submit page (auth)
POST	/submit	Create short URL (auth)
POST	/delete	Delete short URL (auth)
GET	/:code	Resolve short URL (public fallback)

Example: resolve a short link

curl http://localhost:3000/abc12

🏗️ Project structure

shortURLS/
├── index.js        # Express app, routes, auth
├── package.json
├── .env.example
├── README.md
├── public/         # static assets
├── views/          # EJS templates (home, login, dashboard...)
└── queries.sql     # DB schema (users, urls)

🔁 Database (quick) The queries.sql creates two tables:

CREATE TABLE users (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    email VARCHAR(255) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
    password TEXT NOT NULL
);

CREATE TABLE urls (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    user_id INT NOT NULL,
    short_key VARCHAR(50) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
    original_url TEXT NOT NULL,
    FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES users(id) ON DELETE CASCADE
);

Recommended indexes (to improve lookup performance):

• CREATE INDEX idx_urls_short_key ON urls(short_key);
• CREATE INDEX idx_urls_user_short ON urls(user_id, short_key);

🔑 Google OAuth setup

1. Go to Google Cloud Console → APIs & Services → Credentials
2. Create OAuth client (Web application)
3. Add Authorized redirect URIs:

http://localhost:3000/auth/google/dashboard
https://your-production-domain.com/auth/google/dashboard

4. Set GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET in .env

🧪 Testing & development tips

• To run on a different port: PORT=4000 npm start
• Use browser devtools → Application → Cookies to confirm session cookie is set after login
• For local Google testing, add http://localhost:3000/auth/google/dashboard to Google Console

🚀 Deployment notes

• Set env vars on the host (Render, Vercel, Heroku, Railway)
• Ensure CALLBACK_URL uses your production domain and is added to Google Console

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built with Express, Passport, and PostgreSQL
• Thanks to open-source contributors

Made with ❤️ by Aakarsh Divyam