Docs Development

Link Validation

Use the script /libs/link-validator.js to validate links with or without attached anchors. The link validator is a manual process that should be performed as often as possible.

The script is part of a three step process to keep the links in the docs clean.

The three steps:

1. pnpm dev:build: When doing a local build VitePress will valid markdown links and does so very well. Fix them before proceeding. This step will also catch bad src paths for images. It does not validate anchors.
2. Search the code base for ](#. This will show markdown links that link directly to an anchor. While this will work, the anchors cannot be validated by /libs/link-validator.js, see Hyperlinks to understand how to fix them.
3. Run the /libs/link-validator.js script.

Using the script

The script must be run locally and will not work as a GitHub action.

1. Build the docs

Build the docs as usual using the standard build command provided by VitePress.

pnpm docs:build

Note that the build script may in fact catch bad links in of itself. Any reported links should be fixed before proceeding.

2. Start the local VitePress server

VitePress has a built-in http server that publishes the files from the /dist folder.

pnpm docs:serve

3. Run the script

Open a new terminal window to run the script. The script's output will display an indicator for failures as it steps through each file. There will be a summary of all link failures at the end of the script output.

You can run the Link Validator against the entire /dist folder which will validate all docsets but this can be time consuming. Narrowing the scope of the validation to a particular folder (docset) can hasten the validation process. Be sure to use the correct port displayed by VitePress server.

node ./libs/link-validator.js  http://localhost:8082  ./docs/.vitepress/dist/