Switchy

Promptfree, for everyone, and the only version there is

Copy the prompt for Claude CodeCopy the prompt for CodexCopy the prompt for Cursor

Copy

Build me short links with retargeting that replace Switchy: a click passes through my own domain, a pixel fires, and then the visitor lands.

STACK
- Node 20+ with Fastify
- SQLite through better-sqlite3, WAL mode
- Caddy in front with on-demand TLS for custom domains
- The redirect path is one indexed lookup and nothing else

BEFORE THE SPECIFICATION, THE HONEST PART
- This category exists to add somebody to an advertising audience when they click a link — often a link to a page that is not yours at all. The visitor did not ask for that and usually cannot tell it happened
- In the EU and the UK, firing an advertising pixel needs consent, and consent means a real choice before the tag runs, not a banner on the destination you do not control
- So build it with a consent gate, keep the interstitial honest and fast, and do not pretend a redirect through your domain is invisible. A tool that quietly audiences everyone who clicks a shared link is the thing this catalogue exists to be sceptical of
- Then decide, deliberately, whether you want it. The link shortening and the analytics below are worth having either way

THE DATA MODEL
- domains: id, hostname, workspace_id, is_verified, certificate_state, default_redirect
- links: id, domain_id, slug, destination, title, tags_json, utm_json, pixel_ids_json, interstitial_kind, expires_at, password_hash, is_active, created_by, created_at
- link_versions: id, link_id, destination, changed_by, at — appended, never overwritten
- pixels: id, workspace_id, network, tag_id, consent_required, is_active
- clicks: id, link_id, at, referrer_host, country, device, browser, os, lang, ip_hash, bot, is_preview, consent_state, matched_rule_id
- rules: id, link_id, kind, match_json, destination, position — geography, device, language, time
- bio_pages: id, workspace_id, slug, title, bio, avatar_path, theme_json, is_active
- bio_links: id, bio_page_id, label, url, icon, position, is_active, clicks

THE REDIRECT
- 302, never 301. A cached permanent redirect can never be re-pointed, and re-pointing is the whole reason for a short link
- Answer in a couple of milliseconds: one lookup from an in-memory table, respond, record after
- Without pixels, it is a bare redirect and nothing renders. That is the fast path and it should be the default
- With pixels, a minimal interstitial page fires the tags and then moves on — under 200ms of blocking, with a visible skip link and a hard timeout so a slow network tag never traps the visitor. Never a five-second countdown with an advert on it
- Never redirect to a `javascript:` or `data:` destination; validate the scheme on save

CONSENT
- A consent gate before any advertising tag: a short, honest choice, remembered for the session
- Declining still redirects, immediately, with no tag fired. A gate that punishes a decline is not a gate
- The consent state recorded on the click, so you can say later what was and was not collected
- Configurable per country, because the rules differ, and defaulted to asking

THE DOMAIN
- Add a hostname, verify by DNS, and let Caddy's on-demand TLS issue a certificate
- The ask endpoint must check the hostname against the domains table before requesting a certificate. Without that check, anybody pointing a domain at your server makes you request certificates on their behalf and you hit the issuer's rate limits within the hour
- A default redirect for the bare domain

DEEP LINKS
- Open the native application where it is installed, fall back to the web page otherwise
- On iOS this is fiddly and behaves differently inside in-app browsers; test on a real device rather than assuming
- Record which path was taken, so the fallback rate is visible

THE BIO PAGE
- A page of links with an avatar, a short line and a theme
- Server-rendered, under 50KB, no framework, fast on a phone on a poor connection — this page is opened from a social application, which is the worst browsing environment there is
- Clicks counted per link through the same redirect machinery
- Open Graph tags and a generated share image

CLICKS, COUNTED HONESTLY
- Bots flagged, never dropped, and excluded from published numbers through a SQL view. Social and chat applications fetch every link that is posted, and counting those makes a launch look like a success
- A preview fetch is identifiable from the user agent and from the timing
- Unique clicks by a salted hash of address and user agent within a window, with the definition written next to the number
- By day, referrer, country, device and language, computed at query time

SAFETY
- Destinations checked against a malware list on save if one is configured, and reported links queued for review. An open short-link service is a phishing tool, and yours will be found within weeks of being public
- Rate limits on creation per key and per member

OPERATIONS
- .env: DATABASE_PATH, BASE_URL, HASH_SALT, SESSION_SECRET, GEOIP_DB_PATH
- Migrations on boot, each once
- Country from a local database file, never an external API
- Nightly backup off the machine — a lost link table breaks every link anybody has shared
- Health endpoint that resolves one link

WHAT MATTERS MOST
Redirect speed and the consent gate. Build the bare-redirect fast path first, then add the interstitial with a hard timeout and a real choice. If the pixel makes the link slow or the choice fake, you have built something worse than the thing you were replacing.

Give me the repository, migrations, .env.example, the Caddy configuration with the ask endpoint, and a README with deploy steps, the DNS records, and the consent position stated plainly.