The Problem

Typing full URLs gets tedious. status.example.com is a mouthful when you just want to check your dashboard. What if you could just type go/status in your browser and instantly get there?

Go links (also known as “go/” shortcuts) have been a staple at companies like Google for years. The concept is simple:

  • Type go/something in your browser
  • Get redirected to https://something.example.com

This is typically achieved through DNS search domains combined with HTTP redirects.

I helped develop a "Smartlink" solution during my time at Cisco to implement go-links with auto-correction in the intranet.

How It Works

The magic happens in two parts:

1. DNS Search Domain

Configure your LAN to use a search domain example.com. When you type go/status in your browser:

  • Your browser searches for go.example.com
  • DNS resolves go.example.com to your Traefik instance
  • Request arrives: http://go.example.com/status

2. Traefik Path-Based Redirects

Traefik intercepts the request and applies custom middleware to parse the path and construct a new URL:

  • $1 = subdomain (extracted from path)
  • $2 = subpath on destination (optional trailing path)

For example:

  • go/status → https://status.example.com
  • go/grafana/dashboards → https://grafana.example.com/dashboards

Flow Diagram

sequenceDiagram
  participant Browser
  participant DNS
  participant Traefik
  participant Destination

  Browser->>Browser: User types "go/status"
  Browser->>DNS: Lookup "go.example.com"
  DNS-->>Browser: Returns Traefik IP
  Browser->>Traefik: GET http://go.example.com/status
  Traefik->>Traefik: Parse path: $1="status", $2=""
  Traefik->>Traefik: Construct: https://status.example.com
  Traefik-->>Browser: 302 Redirect to https://status.example.com
  Browser->>Destination: GET https://status.example.com
  Destination-->>Browser: Return page

Implementation

Step 1: DNS Configuration

Here is relevant code snippet for my AdGuard Home configuration:

filtering:
...
  rewrites:
    - domain: "go.example.com"
      answer: "192.168.0.2"
    - domain: "go"
      answer: "go.example.com"

Step 2: Traefik Middleware

http:
  middlewares:
    go-slug:
      redirectRegex:
        permanent: false
        regex: "^https?://go(?:\\.example\\.com)?/([^/?#]+)(.*)$"
        replacement: "https://$1.example.com$2"
  routers:
    go:
      entryPoints:
        - web
        - websecure
      middlewares:
        - go-slug
      priority: 100
      rule: "Host(`go`) || Host(`go.example.com`)"
      service: "noop"
  services:
    noop:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: "http://127.0.0.1:65535"

Step 3: Common Shortcuts

Now instead of typing full URLs or bookmarking everything, you can simply:

  • Type go/status → https://status.example.com
  • Type go/grafana → https://grafana.example.com

Clean, fast, and elegant.

Future State: Custom Rule Engine

While the current implementation works great for internal services following the subdomain.example.com pattern, there are cases where you need more flexibility:

The Limitation

Not every shortcut fits the pattern. For example:

  • go/google → https://google.com (external site)
  • go/docs/k8s → https://kubernetes.io/docs (custom mapping)
  • go/gh/jovalle → https://github.com/jovalle (specific profile)
  • go/technis/pull/24 → https://github.com/jovalle/technis/pull/24 (parameterized)

These don’t map to *.example.com subdomains and require custom rules.

The plan is to build a dedicated go-links application that sits behind Traefik:

flowchart LR
    A[Browser: go/google] --> B{Traefik}
    B --> C{Custom Rule?}
    C -->|Yes| D[Go Links App]
    C -->|No| E[Pattern Match]
    E --> F[https://$1.example.com/$2]
    D --> G[Lookup in Database]
    G --> H[https://google.com]

Features

Custom Mappings

  • Database or config-backed rules
  • Support for external URLs
  • Integrations (parameterized)

Fallback Logic

  • Try custom rules first
  • Fall back to pattern-based redirects
  • 404 page with suggestions for unmapped shortcuts

Management Interface

  • Web UI to add/edit/delete shortcuts
  • Analytics dashboard (most used links, 404s)
  • Bulk import/export
  • API for programmatic management

Advanced Features

  • Short-lived temporary links
  • Access control (team-specific shortcuts)
  • Link expiration
  • A/B testing for redirects

Alternatives

There are browser extensions (Golinks and Trotto) that accomplish must of the same thing but require manually adding links. There’s also Tailscale’s golink but only works within a tailnet and still needs to be manually populated.

References