🌐 ShrinkIt! 🔪

ShrinkIt! is a URL shortening project crafted to solidify practical experience with the hexagonal architecture in a strict, real-world Spring Boot application. By diving deep into clean architecture principles, dependency inversion, custom handlers, DTO patterns, and seamless port-adapter interactions, this project encapsulates a well-defined structural approach for scalable software. The frontend component, built with React, complements this architecture by utilizing custom hooks, environment-based configuration for code portability, and TailwindCSS for modern, responsive design.

🎯 Motivation

The primary motivation for ShrinkIt! was not to build an advanced URL shortener but to deeply integrate hexagonal architecture within Spring Boot, a challenge seldom encountered in typical layered architecture setups. This project serves as a focused exercise in structuring code according to clean architecture standards, including:

• Hexagonal Architecture: Implemented to strictly separate the domain, application, and infrastructure layers.
• Custom DTO and Handler Pattern: Uses generic, specialized handlers and DTOs to organize business logic and data exchange.
• Dependency Injection & Inversion of Control: All service dependencies are injected for maximum flexibility and scalability.
• Port-Adapter Structure: Clearly defined ports (interfaces) and adapters across layers allow seamless communication and loose coupling.
• Database implementation: Backend server works by default with MySql 8.X, due to Hexagonal Architecture, it can be changed for any relational datase.

Furthermore, ShrinkIt! is optimized to run locally (via localhost:8080), with all configurations adjustable in the application.properties file. This setup reflects a production-grade environment, enabling practical testing and validation.

Preview

Initial part with a little description and the table where all the magic happens. 🔮

Description of the technologies implemented in the project. 💻

🖥️ Frontend Built with React

The frontend of ShrinkIt! is powered by React and designed with a modern development approach that demonstrates my full-stack capabilities:

• Custom Hooks: Modularized logic for stateful operations within the app, enhancing code reusability and readability.
• TailwindCSS: Provides a sleek, responsive design with utility-first styling, delivering a polished user experience.
• Environment-Based Configurations: Easily modifiable environment variables enable seamless portability and deployment flexibility.

ShrinkIt! leverages these React features to create a professional, efficient, and adaptable frontend that pairs seamlessly with the backend architecture.

🚀 Features

• Shortened Links with Security: URLs are shortened using a combination of BASE62 encoding and SHA-256 hashing to ensure unique, non-conflicting shortened links.
• Local Development Optimized: The project is configured for local development with localhost:8080 and can be customized via application.properties.
• Clean Architecture for Real-World Projects: Perfectly suited for practicing clean architecture principles and gaining hands-on experience with hexagonal structures, DTOs, and handler patterns.

📦 How to Run the Project

Backend (Spring Boot) - Maven

1. Clone the Repository:

        git clone https://github.com/Andres-Shadow/ShrinkIt.git

2. Create the database:

       mysql -u root -p
       <password>
       create database shrinkit;

3. Build and Run the Backend:

       cd shrinkit/backend/Shrinkit
       mvn clean install
       mvn spring-boot:run

   The backend server will start by default on http://localhost:8080.

Frontend (React Project) - NPM

1. Run the Frontend:

   cd shrinkit/frontend/shrinkit
   npm install
   npm run dev

🤔 Why This Project Matters

With ShrinkIt!, my goal wasn’t to create the most powerful URL shortener, but rather to deepen my understanding of modern application architecture. This project provided a hands-on way for me to refine and demonstrate my full-stack development skills. Working on ShrinkIt! allowed me to dive into key concepts such as:

• Hexagonal architecture in Spring Boot.
• Clean separation of concerns across multiple layers.
• Creating adaptable, reusable frontend components.

ShrinkIt! stands as a complete, professional showcase of full-stack design and implementation, a vital asset for any developer aiming to excel in modern software engineering. 😎