mdlink

mdlink is a CLI tool to recursively scan Markdown files and validate HTTP/HTTPS links.

Features

Scans .md files recursively in a directory (or a single .md file).
Extracts Markdown links ([text](url)) and naked URLs (https://...).
Ignores image links (![alt](url)).
Checks links with httpx and follows redirects automatically.
Ignores 200 OK in the report; shows non-200 and request errors.
Shows final resolved URL in output.
Asks interactively before rewriting redirected Markdown links.
Re-checks target URL before writing (must still return 200).
Rewrites links via Markdown AST editing (markdown-it-py), not string replacement.

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install .

mdlink /path/to/docs

Scan current directory recursively:

mdlink .

Step 1: When a Markdown link redirects, mdlink prompts:

Replace old URL with final URL? [y/N]

Step 2: For http:// Markdown links without redirect, mdlink can test an https:// variant and prompt:

Replace HTTP URL with HTTPS variant? [y/N]

Only confirmed links are updated.

This repository includes:

test.sh: Generates a sample Markdown test file.
test.md: A sample file with mixed link cases (200, redirect, 404/500, naked URLs, ignored image/non-http links).

Generate or overwrite test.md:

./test.sh

Generate to a custom file path:

./test.sh /tmp/my-test.md

Run the tool against the generated test file:

mdlink test.md

mdlink --help