dev/docs/02 notes/falinks public surfaces.md

date-created

date-created
2026-08-31 21:32

Falinks Public Surfaces

The project has three components:

• Falinks: the library to resolve short links to fully qualified domain names.
• falinks cli:
  • Non-interactive (use for one off requests or by agents)
  • Interactive mode (REPL-style)
  • Daemon: running in the background, can be used through unix domain sockets (or another inter-process communication)
  • Web server: serves browser requests, including the special / management page and 404 page.

The falinks CLI should have very light logic (if any) related to short links. It should be focused on being the front end(s) that uses the library.

falinks will use machoke for the storage layer.

Design

Falinks public interface

Method	Parameters	Returns	Description
<constructor>	falinks::Options	Falinks	Creates the stateful object. See falinks public surfaces#falinks::Options
get	short_link: String	Result<String>	Returns the url stored for short_link if it exists.
set	short_link: String, url: String	Result<()>	Stores url with short_link key.
delete	short_link: String	Result<bool>	Deletes the entry for <short_link>.
list		Result<Vec<falinks::Entry>>	Retrieves all stored, raw values.

falinks::Options

Key	Type	Default	Description
socket_path	std::path::PathBuf		The path for the Unix Domain Socket. Implicitly starts the daemon.
listen_addr	std::net::SocketAddr		The address for the web server to listen on. Implicitly starts the web server.
store	std::path::PathBuf	tbd	The path to read/write the store. Passed to machoke.

falinks::Error

• NotFound: no entry exists for the provided <prefix>/<short_link>.
• InvalidShortLink: the provided short link could not be resolved.
• InvalidUrl: the target URL is not valid.
• Store: machoke failed while reading or writing the store. Maybe treat this as an "external" error?

falinks::Entry

Field	Type	Description
prefix	String	The namespace for the short link.
short_link	String	The short link key. It can contain /.
url	String	The target URL.
visit_count	u64	Successful get operations increment visit_count.
last_used	u64	Unix timestamp in seconds. Successful get operations update last_used.
last_updated	u64	Unix timestamp in seconds of when the entry was last updated. Metadata updates do not count.

falinks CLI

Command	Description
falinks	Launches falinks interactive mode.
falinks list	Will return all stored URLs and keys, along with metadata like visit count.
falinks get <short_link>	Resolve the short link into a URL. See falinks public surfaces#Resolving short links.
falinks set <short_link> <url>	Store the <url> with <short_link> key. <short_link> still needs to be resolved.
falinks delete <short_link>	Delete the entry that matches <short_link>.
falinks start [--config-path <path>]	Starts the daemon, web server or both as configured. See falinks public surfaces#falinks::Options.
falinks stop	Stops the running daemon.

Global Flags

Flag	Description
--help	Prints the help text.
--version	Prints version information.
--json	Turns all output and errors machine-readable.

JSON payloads

All JSON command responses must include ok. --json does not affect --help or --version.

[!info] Successful List

{
  "ok": true,
  "entries": [
    {
      "prefix": "fa",
      "short_link": "home/plex",
      "url": "https://plex.example.com",
      "visit_count": 12,
      "last_used": 1788210000,
      "last_updated": 1788200000
    }
  ]
}

[!info] Successful get

{
  "ok": true,
  "url": "https://example.com"
}

[!info] Successful set

{
  "ok": true
}

[!info] Successful delete

{
  "ok": true,
  "deleted": true
}

[!info] Successful start

{
  "ok": true,
  "pid": 1234
}

[!info] Successful stop

{
  "ok": true
}

[!info] Error response

{
  "ok": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "not_found",
    "message": "no entry exists for fa/home/plex"
  }
}

See falinks public surfaces#falinks::Error for more details on the variants.

falinks daemon IPC

Daemon IPC uses newline-delimited JSON over the Unix Domain Socket. Each request and response is one JSON object followed by a newline.

Requests mirror the CLI commands:

{"command":"get","short_link":"fa/home/plex"}
{"command":"set","short_link":"fa/home/plex","url":"https://plex.example.com"}
{"command":"delete","short_link":"fa/home/plex"}
{"command":"list"}
{"command":"stop"}

Responses use the same payload shapes as falinks --json. See falinks public surfaces#JSON payloads.

falinks web server

Request	Return Code		Description
GET <prefix>/	200	Falinks Dashboard	The web dashboard to manage falinks. All prefixes return the same dashboard.
GET <prefix>/<short_link>	307	<url>	Returns a temporary redirect to the stored <url>
	404	404 Page	If the <prefix>/<short_link> entry was not found.
POST <prefix>/<short_link> body: {"url": "<url>"}	201		Creates the <prefix>/<short_link> entry for <url>
DELETE <prefix>/<short_link>	200		Deletes the <prefix>/<short_link> entry.
	204		No entry found for <prefix>/<short_link>

Resolving short links

[{http | https}://]<prefix>/<short_link>

• The presence of either http:// or https:// indicates this short link should be resolved through the machine's DNS. Otherwise, it will be resolved through the daemon on the machine.
• <prefix> can technically be anything, the library will support that. But I will only use go or fa (to be decided). Prefixes do not share keys.
• <short_link> can be nested (home/plex), although it has no semantic meaning.