;; link-patrol ;;


Detect dead links in markdown files

Installation

• On MacOS, brew install:

  brew tap rednafi/link-patrol https://github.com/rednafi/link-patrol \
     && brew install link-patrol

• Or elsewhere, go install:

  go install github.com/rednafi/link-patrol/cmd/link-patrol

Quickstart

Usage

link-patrol -h

NAME:
   Link patrol - detect dead links in markdown files

USAGE:
   link-patrol [global options] command [command options]

VERSION:
   0.6

COMMANDS:
   help, h  Shows a list of commands or help for one command

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --filepath value, -f value  path to the markdown file
   --timeout value, -t value   timeout for each HTTP request (default: 5s)
   --error-ok, -e              always exit with code 0 (default: false)
   --json, -j                  output as JSON (default: false)
   --max-retries value         maximum number of retries for each URL (default: 1)
   --start-backoff value       initial backoff duration for retries (default: 1s)
   --max-backoff value         maximum backoff duration for retries (default: 4s)
   --help, -h                  show help
   --version, -v               print the version

List URL status

Here's the content of a sample markdown file:

This is an [embedded](https://example.com) URL.

This is a [reference style] URL.

This is a footnote[^1] URL.

[reference style]: https://reference.com
[^1]: https://gen.xyz/

Run the following command to list the URL status with a 2 second timeout for each request:

link-patrol -f examples/sample_1.md -t 2s

By default, it'll exit with a non-zero code if any of the URLs is invalid or unreachable. Here's how the output looks:

Filepath: examples/sample_1.md

- Location   : https://reference.com
  Status Code: 403
  OK         : false
  Message    : Forbidden
  Attempt    : 1

- Location   : https://example.com
  Status Code: 200
  OK         : true
  Message    : OK
  Attempt    : 1

- Location   : https://gen.xyz/
  Status Code: 200
  OK         : true
  Message    : OK
  Attempt    : 1

2024/02/03 05:24:43 one or more URLs have error status codes
exit status 1

Ignore errors

Set the --error-ok / -e flag to force the CLI to always exit with code 0:

link-patrol -f examples/sample_1.md -e

Print as JSON

Use the --json / -j flag to format the output as JSON:

link-patrol -f examples/sample_2.md -t 5s --json | jq

{
  "location": "https://referencestyle.com",
  "statusCode": 0,
  "ok": false,
  "message": "... no such host"
}
{
  "location": "https://example.com",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "ok": true,
  "message": "OK"
}
{
  "location": "https://example.com/image.jpg",
  "statusCode": 404,
  "ok": false,
  "message": "Not Found"
}

Retry with random jitters

Use the --max-retries, --start-backoff, and --max-backoff to configure auto retries:

link-patrol -f examples/sample_1.md -t 1s --max-retries 3 --max-backoff 3s

Filepath: examples/sample_1.md

- Location   : https://example.com
  Status Code: 200
  OK         : true
  Message    : OK
  Attempt    : 1

- Location   : https://gen.xyz/
  Status Code: 200
  OK         : true
  Message    : OK
  Attempt    : 2

- Location   : https://reference.com
  Status Code: 403
  OK         : false
  Message    : Forbidden
  Attempt    : 3

2024/02/03 05:23:21 one or more URLs have error status codes
exit status 1

Check multiple files

Do some shell-fu:

find examples -name '*.md' -exec link-patrol -f {} -t 4s -e \;