Creating a Personal URL Shortener with Dub and Raycast

I’m a big fan of Raycast and occasionally watch their YouTube videos to stay updated on its features. My favorites are the “What’s in ____ Raycast” videos, where they showcase how others use Raycast.

One brilliant showcase is the video with Max Stoiber, where he walks through his hyper key setup (which I also adapted) and demonstrates various custom commands and scripts he uses. If you’re interested in Raycast, definitely check out that video.

One feature he implemented was a personal short link command, allowing him to create short links on the go and quickly search them. I found this quite useful and saw potential use cases for myself, so I started to look around for a cheap short link.

When I discovered that the domain dawi.co was available for purchase, I couldn’t resist. While there might be shorter domains (and cheaper ones…), I like that it’s basically a short form of my domain:

Similar to Max, I wanted to implement the URL shortener in Raycast. So I started working on a custom Raycast extension to integrate LinkDrip—which I own a lifetime subscription for. However, I was quickly stuck because the LinkDrip API doesn’t support custom slugs for short links. Ugh.

After some research on Reddit and Hacker News for modern URL shortener recommendations, I stumbled upon Dub. I think Dub is relatively new but perfect for my needs because it offers a generous free tier (great for personal use) and a Raycast extension. Exactly what I was looking for!

I’ve already implemented a few basic short links, such as my social media (e.g., dawi.co/x) and quick meeting links (e.g., dawi.co/15 for a quick 15-minute meeting).

Do you have ideas for other short links I could implement? Let me know!