Strapi Redirect Manager

A redirect management plugin for Strapi v5. Manage 301/302 redirects from the admin panel without touching code or redeploying.

What it does

| Feature | Description | |---|---| | Manual redirects | Create, edit, delete, and toggle redirects from the admin panel | | Runtime middleware | Intercepts HTTP requests with an in-memory cache — no DB hit per request | | Slug auto-redirect | Slug changes on content types automatically create a redirect from the old URL | | Chain & cycle detection | Blocks saves that would create chains longer than 10 hops or redirect cycles | | Orphan redirect queue | Deleted content creates a pending entry so you can redirect or dismiss its old URL |

Requirements

• Strapi >=5.0.0 <6.0.0
• Node.js >=20.0.0 (Strapi v5 requirement)

Installation

npm install strapi-plugin-smart-redirect

Add to config/plugins.ts:

export default {
  'redirect-manager': {
    enabled: true,
  },
};

Rebuild and restart:

npm run build
npm run develop

The plugin appears in the left sidebar as Redirect Manager.

User Guide

1. Creating a redirect

1. Click Redirect Manager in the sidebar.

2. Click New Redirect (top right).

3. Fill in the form:

   | Field | Description | Example | |---|---|---| | From | Source path — must start with / | /old-page | | To | Destination path — must start with / | /new-page | | Type | 301 — Permanent or 302 — Temporary | 301 — Permanent | | Active | Whether the redirect is live | On | | Comment | Optional note for your team | SEO migration 2026-03 |

4. Click Create.

The redirect is immediately active — no deploy needed.

Note: External URLs (https://example.com) are not accepted in the To field. The plugin only handles internal path redirects.

2. Editing or deleting a redirect

• Click the pencil icon on any row to edit.
• Click the trash icon to delete (a confirmation dialog appears).
• Use the toggle in the Active column to pause/resume a redirect without deleting it.

3. Setting up slug auto-redirect

When a content entry's slug changes, the plugin can automatically create a redirect from the old URL to the new one.

1. Go to Settings → Redirect Manager → Configuration.
2. Make sure Auto-create redirect when slug changes is On.
3. In the Content Types table, find the content type you want to track.
4. Check the Enabled checkbox for that row.
5. Select the Slug Field (must be a string or uid attribute).
6. Optionally enter a URL Prefix (e.g. /blog).
7. Click Save.

Example: With URL prefix /blog and slug field slug, changing an article's slug from my-post to updated-post automatically creates:

/blog/my-post  →  /blog/updated-post  (301)

Draft & Publish: Auto-redirects are only created for entries that have been published at least once. Drafts that have never been published are skipped.

4. Managing orphan redirects

When a tracked content entry is deleted, its URL becomes a dead end (404). The plugin captures this as a pending orphan so you can decide what to do.

1. From the Redirect Manager page, click Orphan Redirects (top right).

2. You'll see a list of deleted content URLs with their original content type and slug.

3. For each entry, choose:

   • Resolve — Enter a destination path and click Create Redirect. A 301 redirect is created. Any existing redirects that pointed to the old URL are automatically updated to point to the new destination (chain flattening).
   • Dismiss — Ignore the orphan. No redirect is created.

5. Settings reference

Go to Settings → Redirect Manager → Configuration.

| Setting | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | Auto-create redirect when slug changes | On | Creates a redirect automatically when a tracked content slug is updated | | Enable chain detection | On | Blocks saves that would create chains longer than 10 hops or cycles | | Enable orphan redirect tracking | On | Creates a pending orphan entry when tracked content is deleted |

Content Types table:

| Column | Description | |---|---| | Content Type | Your Strapi model (e.g. Article) | | Enabled | Whether this content type participates in auto-redirect and orphan tracking | | Slug Field | The attribute used as the URL slug | | URL Prefix | Prepended to the slug to form the full path (e.g. /blog) |

How the redirect works at runtime

The plugin registers a Koa middleware that runs on every HTTP request:

1. Normalizes the request path (trailing slashes are stripped: /foo/ → /foo).
2. Looks up the normalized path in an in-memory cache (Map<from, {to, type}>). Matching is exact — no regex or wildcards.
3. If a match is found → responds with the configured status code (301 or 302) and a Location header.
4. If no match → passes the request to the next handler.

The cache is populated lazily on first request and invalidated automatically whenever redirects are created, updated, deleted, or toggled.

Security

• All routes require a valid Strapi admin JWT — no public endpoints.
• from and to must start with /. External URLs and protocol-relative URLs (//) are rejected.
• Reserved Strapi paths (/admin, /api, /upload, /_health, /content-manager, /content-type-builder) cannot be used as redirect sources — prevents accidentally locking out admin or API access.
• The middleware skips any cached entry whose to value starts with http:// or https://.
• Error responses never expose stack traces or internal file paths.
• The from field has a database-level unique constraint to prevent duplicate entries under race conditions.

API reference

All endpoints require admin authentication (type: 'admin').

| Method | Path | Description | |---|---|---| | GET | /redirect-manager/redirects | List all redirects | | POST | /redirect-manager/redirects | Create a redirect | | GET | /redirect-manager/redirects/:id | Get a redirect | | PUT | /redirect-manager/redirects/:id | Update a redirect | | DELETE | /redirect-manager/redirects/:id | Delete a redirect | | PUT | /redirect-manager/redirects/:id/toggle | Toggle active state | | GET | /redirect-manager/settings | Get plugin settings | | POST | /redirect-manager/settings | Save plugin settings | | GET | /redirect-manager/content-types | List trackable content types | | GET | /redirect-manager/orphan-redirects | List pending orphan redirects | | PUT | /redirect-manager/orphan-redirects/:id/resolve | Resolve an orphan | | PUT | /redirect-manager/orphan-redirects/:id/dismiss | Dismiss an orphan |

Out of scope (v1)

Regex/wildcard matching, external URL redirects, CSV import/export, locale-aware redirects, analytics tracking, A/B redirects.

License

MIT