RefCheck

RefCheck is a simple tool for finding broken references and links in Markdown files.

usage: refcheck [OPTIONS] [PATH ...]

positional arguments:
  PATH                  Markdown files or directories to check

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -e, --exclude [ ...]  Files or directories to exclude
  -cm, --check-remote   Check remote references (HTTP/HTTPS links)
  -nc, --no-color        Turn off colored output
  -v, --verbose         Enable verbose output
  --allow-absolute      Allow absolute path references like [ref](/path/to/file.md)

Features

• 🔍 Comprehensive Reference Detection - Find and validate various reference patterns in Markdown files
• ❌ Broken Link Highlighting - Quickly identify broken references with clear error messages
• 📁 File Path Validation - Support for both absolute and relative file paths to any file type
• 🌐 Remote URL Checking - Validate external HTTP/HTTPS links (optional with --check-remote)
• 🎯 Header Reference Validation - Verify links to specific sections within Markdown files
• 🛠️ User-Friendly CLI - Simple and intuitive command-line interface
• ⚙️ CI/CD Ready - Perfect for automated quality checks in your documentation workflows
• 🎨 Colored Output - Clear, color-coded results for easy scanning (disable with --no-color)
• 📊 Detailed Reporting - Summary statistics and line-by-line reference validation
• 🚀 Pre-commit Integration - Available as a pre-commit hook for automated validation

Installation

RefCheck is available on PyPI:

pip install refcheck

# or using pipx
pipx install refcheck

Examples

$ refcheck README.md

[+] 1 Markdown files to check.
- README.md

[+] FILE: README.md...
README.md:3: #introduction - OK
README.md:5: #installation - OK
README.md:6: #getting-started - OK

Reference check complete.

============================| Summary |=============================
🎉 No broken references!
====================================================================

$ refcheck . --check-remote

[+] Searching for markdown files in C:\Users\flumi3\github\refcheck ...

[+] 2 Markdown files to check.
- tests\sample_markdown.md
- docs\Understanding-Markdown-References.md

[+] FILE: tests\sample_markdown.md...
tests\sample_markdown.md:39: /img/image.png - BROKEN
tests\sample_markdown.md:52: https://www.openai.com/logo.png - BROKEN

[+] FILE: docs\Understanding-Markdown-References.md...
docs\Understanding-Markdown-References.md:42: #local-file-references - OK

Reference check complete.

============================| Summary |=============================
[!] 2 broken references found:
tests\sample_markdown.md:39: /img/image.png
tests\sample_markdown.md:52: https://www.openai.com/logo.png
====================================================================

Pre-commit Hook

RefCheck is also available as pre-commit hook!

- repo: https://github.com/flumi3/refcheck
  rev: v0.4.1
  hooks:
    - id: refcheck
      args: ["docs/", "-e", "docs/filetoexclude.md"] # e.g. scan the docs/ folder and exclude a file

For more advanced configuration options, see the Integration Guide.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for:

• Development setup instructions
• Commit message conventions
• Code quality standards
• Testing requirements
• Pull request guidelines

Documentation

For more detailed information, check out the documentation:

• CLI Reference - Complete command-line options and usage
• Integration Guide - CI/CD and workflow integration
• Examples - Real-world usage examples

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.