Check Links in Pull Requests
This recipe shows how to check for broken links in pull requests. It only checks newly added links by comparing against the base branch, reducing noise from existing broken links.
The workflow is triggered on pull request events against the main branch. It clones the repository and checks out the main branch to dump all links. It then stashes untracked files and checks out the feature branch. The stashed changes are applied and the links from the main branch are appended to the .lycheeignore file. Finally, the links in the feature branch are checked and suggestions are provided if the check fails.
name: PR Links
on: pull_request: branches: [master] workflow_dispatch:
jobs: linkChecker: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Clone repository uses: actions/checkout@v5 with: fetch-depth: 0
- name: Setup Node.js uses: actions/setup-node@v6 with: node-version: "20"
- name: Setup pnpm uses: pnpm/action-setup@v4 with: version: latest
- name: Check out master branch run: git checkout master
- name: Install dependencies for master run: pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
- name: Build site from master run: pnpm build
- name: Dump all links from master id: dump_links_from_master uses: lycheeverse/lychee-action@v2 with: args: --dump --base-url dist --exclude-all-private dist output: ./links-master.txt
- name: Stash untracked files run: git stash push --include-untracked
- name: Check out feature branch run: | if [ "${{ github.event_name }}" = "pull_request" ]; then git checkout ${{ github.head_ref }} else git checkout ${{ github.ref_name }} fi
- name: Apply stashed changes run: git stash pop || true
- name: Install dependencies for feature branch run: pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
- name: Build site from feature branch run: pnpm build
- name: Append links-master.txt to .lycheeignore run: cat links-master.txt >> .lycheeignore
- name: Check links in PR changes uses: lycheeverse/lychee-action@v2 with: args: --base-url dist --exclude-all-private dist fail: true
- name: Suggestions if: failure() run: | echo -e "\nPlease review the links reported in the 'Check links in PR changes' step above." echo -e "If a link is valid but fails due to a CAPTCHA challenge, IP blocking, login requirements, etc.," echo -e "consider adding such links to .lycheeignore file to bypass future checks.\n" exit 1