fix: stop external link checker false positives (User-Agent + redirect exclusions) - #596
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Swap the external lychee check's User-Agent from curl/8.4.0 to a real browser UA string, which several sites (podcastaddict.com, developers.redhat.com) bot-detect and serve a fake 403/404 to. Add .lycheeignore entries for gitter.im and insights.lfx.linuxfoundation.org, which still fail for reasons lychee's HTTP client can't work around even after the UA fix (an unfollowed redirect and a TLS handshake incompatibility respectively), both verified to load fine in a real browser. Closes #595 Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com> Signed-off-by: Yacine Kheddache <yacine@microcks.io>
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Description
Fixes #595.
Two changes to
.github/workflows/external-link-check.ymland.lycheeignore:--user-agentfromcurl/8.4.0to a realbrowser UA string. Several sites (podcastaddict.com,
developers.redhat.com) bot-detect the curl UA and serve a fake
403/404 to it; with a browser UA they return content normally.
.lycheeignoreentries forgitter.imandinsights.lfx.linuxfoundation.org, which fail for reasons lychee'sHTTP client can't work around even after the UA fix, and are verified
to load fine in a real browser:
gitter.im: fix: replace dead Gitter link with Discord invite in blog post #594 already replaced the non-historical Gitter linkin the 1.0.0 release post with the Discord invite. The remaining
gitter.imlink in the 1.1.0 release post is intentionally kept(historical announcement of the Gitter→Discord move) and 301s to
app.gitter.im — a redirect lychee won't follow regardless of
--max-redirects.insights.lfx.linuxfoundation.org: TLS handshake fails forlychee's client specifically, confirmed independent of User-Agent.
Verification
Ran the actual
lycheebinary locally with the workflow's exact flagsagainst every external link flagged in #584:
reported as errors (404).
OK, along with openapi.org and the twoasciinema.org links.
.lycheeignore): the remaining gitter.im link (in the1.1.0 release post) and insights.lfx.linuxfoundation.org move from
ErrortoExcluded.barcelonajug.org, the removed YouTube video) are still correctly
reported as errors — this change does not mask real breakage.
Related issue(s)
Relates to #584
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