Val Town Has a Free API You've Never Heard Of

#valtown #serverless #typescript #api

Val Town is a social website for writing and deploying TypeScript functions. Each function gets its own URL, runs in the cloud, and can be forked by anyone. Think GitHub Gists meets serverless — with a free API.

What Makes Val Town Special?

Instant deploy — write a function, get a URL
Free tier — generous limits for personal use
Social coding — fork and remix anyone's vals
Built-in storage — SQLite, blob storage, email
Cron support — schedule functions to run periodically

The Hidden API: Instant Serverless Functions

// HTTP endpoint — instantly deployed
export default async function(req: Request): Promise<Response> {
  const { searchParams } = new URL(req.url);
  const city = searchParams.get('city') || 'London';

  const weather = await fetch(
    `https://wttr.in/${city}?format=j1`
  ).then(r => r.json());

  return Response.json({
    city,
    temp: weather.current_condition[0].temp_C,
    description: weather.current_condition[0].weatherDesc[0].value
  });
}
// URL: https://username-weatherapi.web.val.run?city=Tokyo

SQLite API — Built-in Database

import { sqlite } from 'https://esm.town/v/std/sqlite';

// Create table
await sqlite.execute(`
  CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS pageviews (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    path TEXT NOT NULL,
    timestamp DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
    user_agent TEXT
  )
`);

// Insert and query
export default async function(req: Request) {
  const path = new URL(req.url).pathname;
  await sqlite.execute('INSERT INTO pageviews (path, user_agent) VALUES (?, ?)', 
    [path, req.headers.get('user-agent')]);

  const stats = await sqlite.execute(
    'SELECT path, COUNT(*) as views FROM pageviews GROUP BY path ORDER BY views DESC LIMIT 10'
  );

  return Response.json(stats.rows);
}

Email API

import { email } from 'https://esm.town/v/std/email';

// Send email (to yourself on free tier)
export default async function() {
  await email({
    subject: 'Daily Report',
    html: '<h1>Stats for today</h1><p>Views: 1,234</p>'
  });
}

Cron API

// Runs every hour automatically
export default async function() {
  const price = await fetch('https://api.coinbase.com/v2/prices/BTC-USD/spot')
    .then(r => r.json());

  await sqlite.execute(
    'INSERT INTO btc_prices (price, timestamp) VALUES (?, datetime())',
    [price.data.amount]
  );
}
// Set schedule in Val Town UI: "0 * * * *"

Quick Start

Just go to val.town, write a function, and click Run. That's it.

Why Developers Love Val Town

A developer shared: "I needed a webhook endpoint for a Stripe integration. Instead of spinning up a server, deploying to AWS, and managing infrastructure — I wrote 20 lines on Val Town and had a live URL in 30 seconds."

Need quick serverless functions? Email spinov001@gmail.com or check my automation tools.

Where do you host small functions? Val Town vs Cloudflare Workers vs Deno Deploy?

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