Use case

Developers

Sometimes the shortener is a component rather than a product: links created by a job, read by a dashboard, or driven by an assistant, with nobody opening the screens at all.

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The problem

What gets in the way

Most shorteners treat the API as a tier rather than as the product, so the interesting operations are dashboard-only or metered separately, and self-hosting is not offered at any price.

How it works

Three steps with Lua

Call the REST API

Create, update, tag and read links, and read the analytics. It reaches every action the screens do, because both call the same code underneath.

Or hand it to an agent

An MCP server ships with it, so an assistant can create a link, tag it and read its analytics with no scraping layer in between.

Run it yourself if it matters

It is open source and runs on PostgreSQL or MySQL. Self-hosting is the only way to guarantee the click record never reaches anyone else's infrastructure.

What's included

Built for this

REST API covering every action
MCP server for AI agents
API tokens
Self-hostable, open source

Where it stops

The honest limit

Self-hosting is infrastructure you operate: upgrades, backups, and somebody who can read logs when redirects stop. It is a good trade for some teams and a slow distraction for others.

Other use cases

See how else Lua is used

Use case

Marketing campaigns

Tag every placement before you publish it, and read back which one actually moved. UTM parameters, per-campaign tags, and click data that does not expire.

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Use case