# Route alias for a topic via theme component?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/route-alias-for-a-topic-via-theme-component/214167>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [January 7, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/route-alias-for-a-topic-via-theme-component/214167 "2022-01-07T16:33:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![gale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a9a28c/32.png) [@gale](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gale)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/route-alias-for-a-topic-via-theme-component/214167/1 "2022-01-07T16:33:26Z")

</div>

I’d like to add a route alias for a specific topic in Discourse. In my example, I’d like to have “/events” be an alias for “/t/events/42”. Is it possible to do this purely client side without having to define a backend route via a plugin? I tried adding a route and `transitionTo` via theme component, but this only works when the UI has successfully loaded a page and the user clicks a link to navigate to “/events”. If the user tries to load the “/events” link directly, they get a `Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.` error.

I’m guessing this is because Discourse does not do “html5 style routing” where unknown routes on the server side serve a SPA which does client side routing. Is there a way to set Discourse to fall back to client side routing if the server side route isn’t found? If not, it seems like any/all route aliases would have to be defined via a plugin registering them as valid backend routes that redirect.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/route-alias-for-a-topic-via-theme-component/214167)._