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Show redirect chains for any URL from Cloudflare’s edge. The Worker follows HTTP redirects (301, 302, 303, 307, 308) and returns each hop with its status code, so you can see exactly how a URL resolves.

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API Endpoint

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GET /redirect-chain

Follow redirects for a URL and return the chain of hops.
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url
string
required
The URL to trace. Use a full URL (https://cloudflare.com) or hostname (example.com). Only http and https are allowed.

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Example Request

curl "https://your-worker.workers.dev/redirect-chain?url=https://example.com"

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Success Response

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chain
array
Array of objects, one per hop in the redirect chain.
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url
string
The URL at this hop (after redirect, if any).
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status
number
HTTP status code at this hop (e.g. 301, 302, 200).
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error
string
Present if the chain was truncated—e.g. missing Location header, redirect loop, or max redirects exceeded. Response is still 200 with the chain collected so far.

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Example Response

{
  "chain": [
    { "url": "https://example.com/", "status": 301 },
    { "url": "https://www.example.com/", "status": 302 },
    { "url": "https://final.example.com/", "status": 200 }
  ]
}
Display form: example.com → 301 → www.example.com → 302 → final.example.com → 200.

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Error Responses

400 Bad Request — Missing or invalid url (wrong scheme or malformed): 
{
  "error": "Missing or invalid query parameter: url",
  "code": "INVALID_URL"
}
500 Internal Server Error — Uncaught error (e.g. fetch failure): 
{
  "error": "Internal error message",
  "code": "INTERNAL_ERROR"
}
If the chain hits a redirect with no Location or exceeds the hop limit, the response is still 200 with the chain collected so far and an error message in the body.

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Deployment

1

Click the deploy button

Deploy to Cloudflare Workers
2

Deploy

Follow the deployment wizard to deploy the Worker to your Cloudflare account. No additional configuration or bindings required.
3

Test your deployment

curl "https://your-worker.workers.dev/redirect-chain?url=https://cloudflare.com"

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Local Development

cd experiments/edge-redirect-simulator
npm install
npm run dev
Then open: http://localhost:8787/redirect-chain?url=https://cloudflare.com

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Use Cases

  • Debug redirects — See the full chain from short URL or vanity domain to final destination
  • SEO and canonicalization — Verify 301/302 chains and final URLs
  • Security and compliance — Audit where redirects lead before clicking
  • Integration testing — Confirm redirect behavior from the edge

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Cloudflare Features Used

  • Workers — Edge compute runtime
  • Fetch API — HTTP requests with redirect: "manual" to capture each hop
  • Edge Networking — Redirect chain observed from Cloudflare’s global network

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Next Steps

Is It Down?

Check if a website is reachable from the edge

URL DNS Lookup

Get DNS records for any URL’s hostname

GitHub Repository

View the complete source code

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