Deadlink

Scan websites and files for broken links with HTTP status details. Use when auditing links, finding broken URLs, validating references.

DeadLink — Dead Link Checker

Check URLs for broken links. Scan individual URLs, files containing links, or crawl websites. Generates reports with HTTP status codes.

Commands

Command	Description
check <url>	Check a single URL — shows HTTP status, redirect target if applicable
scan <file>	Extract and check all URLs found in a text file
site <url> [depth]	Crawl a webpage, extract all href/src links, and check each one
report <file>	Generate a timestamped report file from all URLs in a text file

Examples

bash

# Check a single URL
deadlink check https://example.com/page
# → 200 OK

# Scan a markdown file for broken links
deadlink scan README.md
# → Extracts all http/https URLs and checks each one

# Crawl a website
deadlink site https://example.com 1
# → Fetches the page, extracts all links, checks each

# Generate a report file
deadlink report bookmarks.html
# → Creates deadlink-report-20240101-120000.txt

Status Codes

• 2xx — OK (alive)
• 3xx — Redirect (alive, shows final URL)
• 4xx — Client error (dead — 404 Not Found, 403 Forbidden, etc.)
• 5xx — Server error (dead)
• 000 — Connection failed (DNS error, timeout, unreachable)

Requirements

• curl — must be installed and in PATH
• Network access to check URLs

Notes

• Timeout: 10 seconds per URL (5s connect timeout)
• URLs are extracted using regex pattern matching for http:// and https:// links
• The site command does basic HTML link extraction (href and src attributes)
• Reports are saved as plain text files in the current directory