Redirecting all paths on a Vercel instance#

I wanted to redirect all traffic to https://something.vercel.app/ to a different domain - preserving the path and the querystring and serving a 301 status code.

The Vercel redirects documentation doesn’t mention that you can capture patterns from the source and place them in the destination. The example they give is:

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{
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  "redirects": [
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    { "source": "/me", "destination": "/profile.html" },
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    { "source": "/user", "destination": "/api/user", "permanent": false },
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    { "source": "/view-source", "destination": "https://github.com/vercel/vercel" }
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  ]
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}

It turns out you can use (.*) in the source and then $1 in the destination. Here’s the example that worked for me:

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{
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    "redirects": [
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        {
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            "source": "/(.*)",
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            "destination": "https://timezones-api.datasette.io/$1",
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            "statusCode": 301
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        }
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    ]
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}

Vercel use 307 and 308 HTTP status codes. I prefer 301 and 302 which is why I used statusCode above instead of their "permanent": true.

Here’s how I deployed it:

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~ % cd /tmp
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/tmp % mkdir timezones-api
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/tmp % cd timezones-api
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timezones-api % echo '{
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    "redirects": [
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        {
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            "source": "/(.*)",
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            "destination": "https://timezones-api.datasette.io/$1",
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            "statusCode": 301
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        }
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    ]
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}
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' > vercel.json
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timezones-api % vercel
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Vercel CLI 19.2.0
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> NOTE: Deploying to Now 2.0 automatically. More: https://vercel.com/docs/version-detection
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? Set up and deploy “/private/tmp/timezones-api”? [Y/n] y
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? Which scope do you want to deploy to? simonw
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? Found project “simonw/timezones-api”. Link to it? [Y/n] y
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🔗  Linked to simonw/timezones-api (created .vercel and added it to .gitignore)
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No framework detected. Default Project Settings:
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- Build Command: `npm run vercel-build` or `npm run build`
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- Output Directory: `public` if it exists, or `.`
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- Development Command: None
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? Want to override the settings? [y/N] y
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? Which settings would you like to overwrite (select multiple)? None
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🔍  Inspect: https://vercel.com/simonw/timezones-api-cn71cufah/simonw [1s]
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✅  Production: https://timezones-api-simonw.vercel.app [copied to clipboard] [10s]
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📝  Deployed to production. Run `vercel --prod` to overwrite later (https://vercel.link/2F).
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💡  To change the domain or build command, go to https://vercel.com/simonw/timezones-api/settings