🚀 URL Shortener — Hackathon Project

A namespaced URL shortening platform built with Django (Backend) and React (Frontend) within 24 hours for a hackathon challenge.

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🧩 Problem Statement

Build a URL Shortener with organizational privileges, secure access control, and namespace-based URL management.

Each user has their own organization(s), where they can manage namespaces and assign roles such as Admin, Editor, and Viewer.

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⚙️ Tech Stack

• Frontend: React.js
• Backend: Django + Django REST Framework
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Storage: Amazon S3 (for file uploads)
• Authentication: JWT-based (role-based access control)

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🔑 Core Features

👤 User & Organization Management

• When a user signs up, a new organization is automatically created.
• The user becomes the Admin of that organization.
• An Admin can invite other users with different roles:
  • Admin: Create namespaces, invite users, manage URLs.
  • Editor: Create/edit/delete shortened URLs.
  • Viewer: View shortened URLs.

🏢 Namespace Management

• Each organization can have multiple namespaces.
• Global uniqueness — no two organizations share the same namespace.
• Custom namespace creation available to Admins.

🔗 URL Shortening

• Users can create short URLs under a specific namespace.
• Custom shortcodes supported (or generated randomly).
• Shortcode uniqueness is enforced per namespace.
• Example: domain.com/myspace/cv → https://drive.google.com/abc123/mycv

📁 Bulk Shortening

• Upload an Excel file with a list of URLs.
• The system returns an Excel file with corresponding shortened URLs.
• Uses Amazon S3 for secure file storage.

⚙️ URL Management

• Create, update, and delete short URLs within an organization’s namespace.

• 🕒 Expiring URLs: Shortened links automatically expire after a defined duration.

• 📬 Email Invites: Admins can send organization invitations via email.

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⏳ Optional / Not Implemented (Due to Time Constraint)

The following features were planned but not completed within the 24-hour build window:

• 📊 Analytics Dashboard (click count, creator, timestamps)
• 🧾 Tags or Categories for URLs
• 🧩 QR Code Generation
• ⚙️ Rate Limiting / Usage Stats
• 🔒 Private URLs (access via JWT token only)

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🧠 URL Routing Example

domain.com/// → Redirects to actual URL

Example: domain.com/my/cv → https://drive.google.com/file/d/abc123/view

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🕐 Hackathon Details

• 🏁 Duration: 24 hours
• 🧑‍💻 Built With: Django + React
• 🎯 Goal: Implement maximum core functionality under strict time constraint

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💬 Future Improvements

• Add analytics and QR generation
• Integrate Google sign-in
• Add category/tag filters and usage statistics

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👨‍💻 Author

Don Jo Rois
Python Django + React Developer
(Hackathon Build - 24 hours)

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