{
  "id": 11255554,
  "title": "Your README's demo link is dead and nobody told you.",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/01/your-readmes-demo-link-is-dead-and-nobody-told-you",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-01T18:36:55.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/haoli/your-readmes-demo-link-is-dead-and-nobody-told-you-4o53"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Your README's demo link was dead, but nobody informed you about it. The link rot went unnoticed until it became a problem. md-link-check, a fast local-first markdown link checker, reveals broken links in your README and docs folder before your readers encounter them. By checking the markdown files, md-link-check flags broken text links, image sources, reference-style links, autolinks, and bare URLs. It decodes %20 -style paths and follows redirects, exiting with a non-zero code when broken links are found. This tool is helpful for CI pipelines, sandboxes, and offline environments, and it is written in Python 3.9+ using the standard library.",
  "summary": "Launch day. Your README is live, the demo link everyone clicks first goes nowhere — the repo moved, the docs page got renamed, nobody noticed during review. Link rot is quiet until it isn't. md-link-check is a fast, local-first link checker for markdown. Point it at your README and docs folder and it tells you which links are dead — before your readers find out: curl -O…",
  "key_points": [
    "README's demo link was dead",
    "Link rot went unnoticed",
    "md-link-check reveals broken links"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}