malinichevvv/lift-skeleton

A starter URL-shortener microservice built on the Lift PHP micro-framework.

dev-master 2026-05-18 14:10 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.1
• malinichevvv/lift-php: ^1.2

Requires (Dev)

• phpunit/phpunit: ^11.0

MIT

• php
• Skeleton
• micro-framework
• starter
• rest-api
• URL-Shortener
• lift

README

A small, production-shaped URL-shortener microservice built on the Lift PHP micro-framework.

It is meant as a starting point: clone it, read it in five minutes, then replace the links resource with your own. Despite its size it exercises a real slice of the framework — attribute routing, request validation, the query builder, migrations, a cache layer, per-route middleware and a custom console command.

Quick start

composer create-project malinichevvv/lift-skeleton myapp
cd myapp
composer serve

create-project copies .env, generates an APP_KEY and runs the migrations for you. The service is now live on http://localhost:8000.

# Create a short link (API key is empty by default — see .env)
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/links \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d '{"url": "https://www.php.net/releases/8.3/en.php"}'
# -> {"slug":"aZ3kPq","short_url":"http://localhost:8000/aZ3kPq", ...}

# Open the short link in a browser — it redirects, and the click is counted.
open http://localhost:8000/aZ3kPq

# Inspect the stats
curl http://localhost:8000/links/aZ3kPq/stats

Endpoints

Method	Path	Description	Auth
GET	/	Self-describing endpoint list	—
GET	/health	Liveness + database probe (200 / 503)	—
POST	/links	Create a short link	X-API-Key
GET	/links/{slug}/stats	Click statistics for a short link	—
GET	/{slug}	Redirect to the original URL	—

POST /links accepts JSON:

{ "url": "https://example.com", "slug": "optional-custom", "expires_in": 86400 }

slug is optional (a random one is generated); expires_in is optional (seconds until the link stops resolving).

Authentication

POST /links is guarded by ApiKeyMiddleware. Set API_KEY in .env and send it as the X-API-Key header. While API_KEY is empty every request is allowed — handy locally, but set a key before deploying.

Project layout

app/
  Controllers/   HealthController, LinkController  — attribute-routed
  Middleware/    ApiKeyMiddleware                  — PSR-15
  Console/       PruneExpiredCommand               — custom CLI command
bootstrap/app.php  builds the App: env, config, services, middleware, routes
config/            app.php, database.php
database/migrations/  schema, run by `lift migrate`
public/index.php   front controller
tests/             feature tests on an in-memory SQLite database
lift.php           registers project console commands

Console

vendor/bin/lift ships with the framework; this project adds a few commands:

php vendor/bin/lift serve          # development server
php vendor/bin/lift migrate        # run migrations
php vendor/bin/lift routes:list    # show registered routes
php vendor/bin/lift links:prune    # delete expired links (wire to cron)
php vendor/bin/lift list           # all available commands

Tests

composer test

Feature tests run against a fresh in-memory SQLite database — no setup, no external services.

Configuration

SQLite is the default and needs nothing. To use MySQL/PostgreSQL or Redis, uncomment the relevant block in .env. Redis, when configured, backs the slug → URL lookup cache.

Docker

docker compose up --build

Brings up the service (with lift serve) plus a Redis container.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.