Last updated: 7 Apr 2026

short-url-manager: Rake tasks

Create and apply a redirect

This Rake task allows you to create and immediately apply a redirect without going through the normal approval workflow.

It is intended for operational use on support tasks, e.g. if having to bulk import a number of redirects, or patch in a redirect where there is no workflow to do so in the original publishing app.

Usage

Run the task with the following arguments:

bundle exec rake redirects:create_and_apply[contact_email,from_path,to_path,reason,override_existing,route_type,segments_mode,organisation_slug,organisation_title]

Example

bundle exec rake redirects:create_and_apply[a@gov.uk,/from-path,/to-path,"Manual redirect needed as not supported in publishing app",true,exact,ignore,government-digital-service,"Government Digital Service"]

Arguments

Argument	Required	Description
contact_email	Yes	Email address of the person creating the redirect
from_path	Yes	The base path to redirect from (must start with /)
to_path	Yes	The destination path (must start with /)
reason	Yes	Explanation for why the redirect is needed
override_existing	Yes	true or false – whether to override an existing redirect
route_type	No	"exact" (default) or "prefix"
segments_mode	No	"ignore" (default) or "preserve"
organisation_slug	No	Defaults to "government-digital-service"
organisation_title	No	Defaults to "Government Digital Service"