Link checker across nix documentation properties

[lf-]

Observations

If we add more links, they might break. We can automate finding broken links between our things, in principle, and run it in ci. One difficulty is that the repos aren't versioned together but this could be overcome.

Cargo's book has a link checker iirc, could maybe use that.

Problem

With more links come more possibilities to break them. We could catch the breakage automatically.

Approaches

Write script that reads html files of built sites, soups the links out, and validates the target files exist with the appropriate anchors. Run in CI here or elsewhere.

Willing to help?

Sure

Priorities

Add 👍 to issues you find important.

[asymmetric]

We do have a link checker, see here, it's run in CI as well.

EDIT: or were you talking about more than just nix.dev?

[lf-]

We do have a link checker, see here, it's run in CI as well.

EDIT: or were you talking about more than just nix.dev?

Cross ecosystem, across all our docs, yeah

[AlexMills0]

I just created #1032 and now that I have stumbled across this issue, I am wondering if these broken links somehow passed the check you are talking about here or if the check is not working.

If I wanted to diagnose the issue, would I check the logs from GitHub Actions? I am new here so please ELI5.

[fricklerhandwerk]

@AlexMills0 that particular one is deliberately ignored due to how the manuals are incorporated. It's not great but there are more things to be done to optimise that.