Shorten
The React client creates generated or custom aliases and returns shareable links with QR assets.
Analytics product · Data visualization / 2026
Linkly
Turning a tiny redirect into useful, legible product intelligence.
01 / The problem
Complexity should live in the system,not in the experience.
Every visit must redirect immediately while still recording useful context, and the resulting event stream must be transformed into analytics that remain readable across sparse and uneven data.
02 / System flow
From input to a reliable outcome.
Capture
Express resolves each key, records request context, then issues the destination redirect.
Aggregate
PostgreSQL and Prisma retain links and click events for country, device, browser, and referrer rollups.
Explain
Recharts turns daily series and ranked dimensions into an approachable reporting view.
03 / Decisions that shaped the build
01Engineering choice
Treat clicks as first-class records
Raw redirect events are retained so new aggregations can be derived without changing the short-link creation model.
02Engineering choice
Normalize time before charting
Daily buckets use UTC keys and fill empty dates, keeping sparse activity aligned and visually honest.
03Engineering choice
Make every link portable
Each result includes QR endpoints in PNG, JPEG, and SVG formats for digital or offline sharing.
04 / Reliability
Designed for imperfect conditions.
- Custom-alias format and uniqueness checks
- Proxy-aware client IP extraction
- Continuous UTC chart series with empty-day padding
- 404 handling for unknown aliases and QR requests
05 / Reflection
“Linkly made a useful distinction between collecting data and explaining it: the redirect path should stay small, while the analytics layer does the patient work of adding context.”Explore selected work