Setup
Let’s manage redirected short links with your vanityURLs engine. An instance can be up and running in 10 minutes, once you have the prerequisites listed below.
Quickstart focuses on that happy path:
- Choose a short domain
- Put that domain on Cloudflare DNS
- Create a GitHub repository with the vanityURLs code
- Configure settings in your terminal
- Let Cloudflare deploy the Worker
- Test your first short links
Use Setup flowcharts when you want to understand how the installer groups questions and which branches stay on the happy path.
What you need
Before starting, make sure you have these pieces ready:
Register a short domain
Use a domain that you will use only for redirects, such as ex.am. If you have not chosen one yet, read Choosing a short domain for redirects.
Prepare a GitHub account
Use GitHub for the repository that stores your links and deployment history. The repository can be public, or private if you do not want to show all your short links to the world. GitHub’s guide to creating an account is the best starting point if you are new to it.
Prepare Cloudflare
Use a Cloudflare account for DNS and Workers services. You can use an existing account or create a new one; refer to Cloudflare documentation when creating an account.
- Cloudflare authoritative DNS for the short domain. vanityURLs expects Cloudflare to manage the DNS zone used by the Worker route or custom domain. Cloudflare’s full setup guide explains how to add a domain and change nameservers at your registrar
- Cloudflare Access team domain. The installer asks for it during the setup; find it in Zero Trust > Settings as the Team domain, such as
<team>.cloudflareaccess.com. See Access control for the full Zero Trust setup
Prepare a local workstation
Use Linux, macOS, or Windows with Git, Node.js 20 or newer, npm, jq, and your preferred text editor.
Use a password manager
Keep operational secrets out of Git