Routeup – stable local HTTPS URLs and opt-in public tunnels

7 points by mukul


I built Routeup around a simple idea: local apps should use their real names.

It was inspired by Portless, but I also wanted built-in public tunneling, selective path exposure, request inspection, and live logs.

Instead of opening localhost:3000, I can give a project a stable, trusted HTTPS URL and keep using it across restarts:

https://example-app.localhost

The app stays local by default. When an external service needs access, I can expose the whole route or only selected paths such as /api/webhooks/*:

local:  https://example-app.localhost
public: https://example-app.try.routeup.dev
expose: /api/webhooks/*

Exposure has its own lifecycle. I can expose an already-running route from another terminal and stop sharing it without stopping the local app.

For quick, temporary exposure, Routeup provides names under *.try.routeup.dev without requiring an account or token. For stable public names, a token claims a namespace such as team.routeup.dev. Apps can then use names beneath it, such as api.team.routeup.dev and docs.team.routeup.dev. The same namespace model works with a self-hosted Routeup server and your own domain.

Routeup grew out of frustrations I had using ngrok and localtunnel. They could expose a port, but their tunnel-first model was not the workflow I wanted. I wanted the app to have a stable local identity first, with public access added only when and where it was needed.

I use this workflow heavily at work and for personal projects. Routeup currently supports multiple path targets behind one origin, repository-level configuration, running an app command, request inspection, hosted public URLs, and self-hosted servers.

The local workflow requires no account, token, DNS, or remote server. Routeup is a single Go binary, has no CLI telemetry, and is MIT licensed.

I'd appreciate any feedback on the project, especially ideas for improving the workflow, documentation, or features. If you run into any issues during setup or while using the tool, please open a GitHub issue or email help@routeup.dev.

stephenr

I'm not an expert but everything about this screams "LLM, generate all the stuff".

The commits, the readme, the website.

It's gonna be a no from me dawg.