A super simple site crawler and broken link checker.
Behold my latest inator! The linkinator provides an API and CLI for crawling websites and validating links. It's got a ton of sweet features:
- 🔥 Easily perform scans on remote sites or local files
- 🔥 Scan any element that includes links, not just
<a href> - 🔥 Supports redirects, absolute links, relative links, all the things
- 🔥 Configure specific regex patterns to skip
- 🔥 Scan markdown files without transpilation
npm install linkinatorNot into the whole node.js or npm thing? You can also download a standalone binary that bundles node, linkinator, and anything else you need. See releases.
You can use this as a library, or as a CLI. Let's see the CLI!
$ linkinator LOCATIONS [ --arguments ]
Positional arguments
LOCATIONS
Required. Either the URLs or the paths on disk to check for broken links.
Supports multiple paths, and globs.
Flags
--concurrency
The number of connections to make simultaneously. Defaults to 100.
--config
Path to the config file to use. Looks for `linkinator.config.json` by default.
--directory-listing
Include an automatic directory index file when linking to a directory.
Defaults to 'false'.
--format, -f
Return the data in CSV or JSON format.
--help
Show this command.
--include, -i
List of urls in regexy form to include. The opposite of --skip.
--markdown
Automatically parse and scan markdown if scanning from a location on disk.
--recurse, -r
Recursively follow links on the same root domain.
--retry,
Automatically retry requests that return HTTP 429 responses and include
a 'retry-after' header. Defaults to false.
--retry-errors,
Automatically retry requests that return 5xx or unknown response.
--retry-errors-count,
How many times should an error be retried?
--retry-errors-jitter,
Random jitter applied to error retry.
--server-root
When scanning a locally directory, customize the location on disk
where the server is started. Defaults to the path passed in [LOCATION].
--skip, -s
List of urls in regexy form to not include in the check.
--timeout
Request timeout in ms. Defaults to 0 (no timeout).
--url-rewrite-search
Pattern to search for in urls. Must be used with --url-rewrite-replace.
--url-rewrite-replace
Expression used to replace search content. Must be used with --url-rewrite-search.
--verbosity
Override the default verbosity for this command. Available options are
'debug', 'info', 'warning', 'error', and 'none'. Defaults to 'warning'.
You can run a shallow scan of a website for busted links:
npx linkinator https://jbeckwith.comThat was fun. What about local files? The linkinator will stand up a static web server for yinz:
npx linkinator ./docsBut that only gets the top level of links. Lets go deeper and do a full recursive scan!
npx linkinator ./docs --recurseAw, snap. I didn't want that to check those links. Let's skip em:
npx linkinator ./docs --skip www.googleapis.comThe --skip parameter will accept any regex! You can do more complex matching, or even tell it to only scan links with a given domain:
linkinator http://jbeckwith.com --skip '^(?!http://jbeckwith.com)'Maybe you're going to pipe the output to another program. Use the --format option to get JSON or CSV!
linkinator ./docs --format CSVLet's make sure the README.md in our repo doesn't have any busted links:
linkinator ./README.md --markdownYou know what, we better check all of the markdown files!
linkinator "**/*.md" --markdownYou can pass options directly to the linkinator CLI, or you can define a config file. By default, linkinator will look for a linkinator.config.json file in the current working directory.
All options are optional. It should look like this:
{
"concurrency": 100,
"config": "string",
"recurse": true,
"skip": "www.googleapis.com",
"format": "json",
"silent": true,
"verbosity": "error",
"timeout": 0,
"markdown": true,
"serverRoot": "./",
"directoryListing": true,
"retry": true,
"retryErrors": true,
"retryErrorsCount": 3,
"retryErrorsJitter": 5,
"urlRewriteSearch": "/pattern/",
"urlRewriteReplace": "replacement",
}To load config settings outside the CWD, you can pass the --config flag to the linkinator CLI:
linkinator --config /some/path/your-config.jsonYou can use linkinator as a GitHub Action as well, using JustinBeckwith/linkinator-action:
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
name: ci
jobs:
linkinator:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: JustinBeckwith/linkinator-action@v1
with:
paths: README.mdTo see all options or to learn more, visit JustinBeckwith/linkinator-action.
Asynchronous method that runs a site wide scan. Options come in the form of an object that includes:
path(string|string[]) - A fully qualified path to the url to be scanned, or the path(s) to the directory on disk that contains files to be scanned. required.concurrency(number) - The number of connections to make simultaneously. Defaults to 100.port(number) - When thepathis provided as a local path on disk, theporton which to start the temporary web server. Defaults to a random high range order port.recurse(boolean) - By default, all scans are shallow. Only the top level links on the requested page will be scanned. By settingrecursetotrue, the crawler will follow all links on the page, and continue scanning links on the same domain for as long as it can go. Results are cached, so no worries about loops.retry(boolean|RetryConfig) - Automatically retry requests that respond with an HTTP 429, and include aretry-afterheader. TheRetryConfigoption is a placeholder for fine-grained controls to be implemented at a later time, and is only included here to signal forward-compatibility.serverRoot(string) - When scanning a locally directory, customize the location on disk where the server is started. Defaults to the path passed inpath.timeout(number) - By default, requests made by linkinator do not time out (or follow the settings of the OS). This option (in milliseconds) will fail requests after the configured amount of time.markdown(boolean) - Automatically parse and scan markdown if scanning from a location on disk.linksToSkip(array | function) - An array of regular expression strings that should be skipped, OR an async function that's called for each link with the link URL as its only argument. Return a Promise that resolves totrueto skip the link orfalseto check it.directoryListing(boolean) - Automatically serve a static file listing page when serving a directory. Defaults tofalse.urlRewriteExpressions(array) - Collection of objects that contain a search pattern, and replacement.
Constructor method that can be used to create a new LinkChecker instance. This is particularly useful if you want to receive events as the crawler crawls. Exposes the following events:
pagestart(string) - Provides the url that the crawler has just started to scan.link(object) - Provides an object withurl(string) - The url that was scannedstate(string) - The result of the scan. Potential values includeBROKEN,OK, orSKIPPED.status(number) - The HTTP status code of the request.
const link = require('linkinator');
async function simple() {
const results = await link.check({
path: 'http://example.com'
});
// To see if all the links passed, you can check `passed`
console.log(`Passed: ${results.passed}`);
// Show the list of scanned links and their results
console.log(results);
// Example output:
// {
// passed: true,
// links: [
// {
// url: 'http://example.com',
// status: 200,
// state: 'OK'
// },
// {
// url: 'http://www.iana.org/domains/example',
// status: 200,
// state: 'OK'
// }
// ]
// }
}
simple();In most cases you're going to want to respond to events, as running the check command can kinda take a long time.
const link = require('linkinator');
async function complex() {
// create a new `LinkChecker` that we'll use to run the scan.
const checker = new link.LinkChecker();
// Respond to the beginning of a new page being scanned
checker.on('pagestart', url => {
console.log(`Scanning ${url}`);
});
// After a page is scanned, check out the results!
checker.on('link', result => {
// check the specific url that was scanned
console.log(` ${result.url}`);
// How did the scan go? Potential states are `BROKEN`, `OK`, and `SKIPPED`
console.log(` ${result.state}`);
// What was the status code of the response?
console.log(` ${result.status}`);
// What page linked here?
console.log(` ${result.parent}`);
});
// Go ahead and start the scan! As events occur, we will see them above.
const result = await checker.check({
path: 'http://example.com',
// port: 8673,
// recurse: true,
// linksToSkip: [
// 'https://jbeckwith.com/some/link',
// 'http://example.com'
// ]
});
// Check to see if the scan passed!
console.log(result.passed ? 'PASSED :D' : 'FAILED :(');
// How many links did we scan?
console.log(`Scanned total of ${result.links.length} links!`);
// The final result will contain the list of checked links, and the pass/fail
const brokeLinksCount = result.links.filter(x => x.state === 'BROKEN');
console.log(`Detected ${brokeLinksCount.length} broken links.`);
}
complex();This library supports proxies via the HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables. This guide provides a nice overview of how to format and set these variables.
You may have noticed in the example, when using a glob the pattern is encapsulated in quotes:
linkinator "**/*.md" --markdownWithout the quotes, some shells will attempt to expand the glob paths on their own. Various shells (bash, zsh) have different, somewhat unpredictable behaviors when left to their own devices. Using the quotes ensures consistent, predictable behavior by letting the library expand the pattern.
Oftentimes when a link fails, it's an easy to spot typo, or a clear 404. Other times ... you may need more details on exactly what went wrong. To see a full call stack for the HTTP request failure, use --verbosity DEBUG:
linkinator https://jbeckwith.com --verbosity DEBUGThe --verbosity flag offers preset options for controlling the output, but you may want more control. Using jq and --format JSON - you can do just that!
linkinator https://jbeckwith.com --verbosity DEBUG --format JSON | jq '.links | .[] | select(.state | contains("BROKEN"))'
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