link-sweep 0.1.1

A tool for checking and cleaning dead links in Markdown files for SSGs

Link Sweep

Link Sweep is a tool for checking and cleaning dead links specifically within Markdown files for use with static site generators like Zola, Hugo, and Jekyll. Dead links have a negative impact on SEO, security and user experience. This tool was inspired by DeadFinder and designed to be more lightweight, tailored to my specific needs.

This tool is vastly more limited in scope, being designed specifically for recursively targeting markdown files within a given directory. For broader use cases, I recommend DeadFinder

Installation

From PyPI (Recommended)

pip install link-sweep

From Source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/link-sweep.git
cd link-sweep
pip install -e .

Usage

# Check links in your content directory
link-sweep check-links content/

# Check with verbose output
link-sweep check-links --verbose content/

# Check and automatically remove dead links (no back-up)
link-sweep check-links --remove-dead content/

When using --remove-dead, dead links like [Example](https://dead-link.com) become just Example.

GitHub Actions Integration

This script was designed with the intention of running as part of GitHub Actions, however, it can be run manually. A generic workflow might look something like this:

name: Weekly Link Cleanup

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 6 * * 1'  # Monday 6 AM

jobs:
  cleanup:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    
    - name: Fix dead links
      run: link-sweep check-links --remove-dead content/
    
    - name: Create PR if changes
      uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v5
      with:
        commit-message: "fix: automated dead link cleanup"
        title: "🔧 Weekly dead link cleanup"

The above runs weekly to create a pull request if there are any changes captured within the runner's local files.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Changelog

v0.1.1

• Basic link checking functionality
• Dead link removal option
• CLI interface with Click
• Concurrency for improved perforamance
• Link timeouts