Shorten URL Service with Go and AWS SAM

In my previous article I explained how to structure a Golang project for better readability and maintainability.

Now, let’s take it a step further by building a URL Shortener Service using Go and AWS SAM (Serverless Application Model).🚀

What is AWS SAM?

SAM (Serverless Application Model) is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool provided by AWS. It simplifies deploying serverless applications by letting you define them in a template and deploying via CloudFormation

Key advantages:

• ✅ Easy deployment of serverless applications


• ✅ Built-in support for AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, etc.


• ✅ Package and publish apps to the AWS Serverless Application Repository


• ✅ CI/CD friendly

Flow Diagram

Technical Flow

Here’s how the URL shortener works under the hood:

1. Client Request -> The user submits a request to API Gateway.


2. Lambda Trigger -> API Gateway routes the request to a Lambda function written in Go.


3. Supported Operations - POST, GET.


4. POST Operations:
   
   
   
   
   • The Lambda Parse the request payload.
   
   
   • The handler generates a hash of the original URL.
   
   
   • The hash and actual URL are stored in the database (DynamoDB).
   
   
   
   


5. Get Operations:
   
   
   
   
   • It retrieves the original URL by using Hash in the request URL.
   
   
   • Lambda returns an HTTP 302 redirect with the original URL in the Location header.
   
   
   • Client browser follows the redirect and loads the original URL.
   
   
   
   

Source Code

I’ve open-sourced the complete implementation here:

👉 ShrinkIt – URL Shortener with Go + SAM

Building and Deploying with SAM

Step 1: Clone git clone https://github.com/ticatwolves/shrinkIt.git

Step 2: Build the Project make build

Step 3: Deploy the Project make deploy

Feel free to check it out, clone the repo, and try it yourself!

💬 Have you tried building serverless applications with Go before? Share your experience in the comments — I’d love to hear your thoughts!