dead-link-scanner

Find broken links in websites, markdown files, and HTML documents.

Quick Start

# Scan a website for broken links
python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py scan https://example.com

# Scan with depth limit (default: 1)
python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py scan https://example.com --depth 3

# Scan a local markdown file
python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py file README.md

# Scan multiple files
python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py file docs/*.md

# JSON output
python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py scan https://example.com --json

# Only show broken links
python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py scan https://example.com --broken-only

Commands

scan

Crawl a website and check all links on each page.

python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py scan <url> [options]

Options: - --depth <n> — Max crawl depth (default: 1, 0 = single page only) - --timeout <seconds> — Request timeout (default: 10) - --json — Output results as JSON - --broken-only — Only show broken links - --internal-only — Only check links within the same domain - --max-urls <n> — Max URLs to check (default: 200) - --delay <seconds> — Delay between requests (default: 0.2)

file

Scan local markdown or HTML files for broken links.

python3 scripts/dead_link_scanner.py file <path>... [options]

Options: - --timeout <seconds> — Request timeout (default: 10) - --json — Output as JSON - --broken-only — Only show broken links

Output

Default text output:

✓ 200  https://example.com/about
✓ 200  https://example.com/blog
✗ 404  https://example.com/old-page  (found on: https://example.com)
✗ ERR  https://dead-domain.xyz  (found on: https://example.com) — ConnectionError

Summary line:

Checked 42 links: 39 OK, 3 broken