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URL Shortener API in cURL

Complete cURL integration guide for the URL Shortener API. Copy the code below, add your RapidAPI key, and start building.

🐍 Python ⚡ JavaScript 🔗 cURL 🐘 PHP 💎 Ruby 🔵 Go ☕ Java 🟣 C#

Prerequisites

1.Sign up for a free account on RapidAPI
2.Subscribe to the URL Shortener API (free tier available)
3.Copy your X-RapidAPI-Key from the dashboard

Complete cURL Example

helix-url-shortener.sh

curl -X POST "https://url-shortener-by-helix-api.p.rapidapi.com/shorten" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Host: url-shortener-by-helix-api.p.rapidapi.com" \
  -d '{"url": "https://helix-api.com/apis"}'

Response Format

All Helix-API endpoints return a consistent JSON envelope:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": { ... },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_abc123",
    "latency_ms": 42
  }
}

On errors, status becomes "error" and a message field explains what went wrong.

Error Handling

Status	Meaning	Action
`200`	Success	Parse the response body normally
`400`	Bad request	Check your request parameters
`401`	Unauthorized	Verify your X-RapidAPI-Key header
`429`	Rate limited	Wait and retry with exponential backoff
`500`	Server error	Retry after a short delay

cURL Best Practices

Perfect for quick testing

cURL is the fastest way to test the URL Shortener API from your terminal. Copy the example above and replace YOUR_API_KEY.

Pipe output to jq

Add | jq '.' to pretty-print JSON responses, or | jq '.data' to extract specific fields.

Save to a file

Add -o response.json to save the output directly to a file. Great for logging and debugging.

Use environment variables for keys

Set export RAPIDAPI_KEY="your_key" and reference it with $RAPIDAPI_KEY in your curl commands. Never hardcode keys in scripts.

URL Shortener API Endpoints

POST

/shorten

Create short URL

GET

/resolve/{code}

Resolve short URL to original

GET

/stats/{code}

Get click stats

POST

/bulk

Shorten up to 10 URLs

Other Languages

View the URL Shortener API integration guide in another language:

🐍 Python ⚡ JavaScript 🐘 PHP 💎 Ruby 🔵 Go ☕ Java 🟣 C#

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