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
# 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://andhttps://links - The
sitecommand does basic HTML link extraction (href and src attributes) - Reports are saved as plain text files in the current directory