Deref CLI

deref-cli is a command line interface to the https://deref.link/ URL tracing service (available on github).

By passing a URL to deref-cli, you can get a preview of all the HTTP redirects the browser will jump through to reach its final destination. This is especially useful when investigating untrusted links from URL shortening services.

As deref.link was started as a way for me to learn AngularJS, it seems only fitting that deref-cli serve as a way to learn NodeJS and explore the available resources for building command-line applications in Node.

One cavaet of this inspired-by-learning origin is that deref-cli is using a remote API for the logic, when it would be simpler and faster to just use local logic. It's a bit of an odd direction, and I might improve it in the future.

Installation

> npm install --global deref-cli

Usage

Invocation:

> deref http://whateverthing.com

Result:

Found 2 hops:
1: http://whateverthing.com
2: https://whateverthing.com/

About the Author

Kevin Boyd (aka Beryllium) is a web application developer by day, and by night, and sometimes while sleeping. His blog can be found at https://whateverthing.com and it even gets updated periodically.

License and Maintainership

deref-cli is open sourced under the MIT license.

I might not have time to add amazing new functionality to it, but you're welcome to submit pull requests. If you're so inclined, you're also entirely welcome to fork it and create your own vision for the tool.