Output Formats

DeadFinder writes results only when -o <FILE> is set (stdout stays human-readable log). Pick the format with -f <format>.

Basic shape

Same across JSON / YAML / TOML:

{
  "https://www.example.com": [
    "https://www.example.com/broken-link-1",
    "https://www.example.com/broken-link-2"
  ]
}

CSV:

target,url
https://www.example.com,https://www.example.com/broken-link-1
https://www.example.com,https://www.example.com/broken-link-2

Coverage mode

Add --coverage to include per-target statistics:

deadfinder sitemap https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml --coverage -o out.json

{
  "dead_links": {
    "https://www.example.com": ["https://www.example.com/broken-link-1"]
  },
  "coverage": {
    "targets": {
      "https://www.example.com": {
        "total_tested": 100,
        "dead_links": 5,
        "coverage_percentage": 5.0,
        "status_counts": {"404": 3, "500": 2}
      }
    },
    "summary": {
      "total_tested": 100,
      "total_dead": 5,
      "overall_coverage_percentage": 5.0,
      "overall_status_counts": {"404": 3, "500": 2}
    }
  }
}

SARIF

-f sarif produces a SARIF 2.1.0 document you can upload to GitHub code scanning (github/codeql-action/upload-sarif) or feed into any SARIF-aware tooling:

deadfinder sitemap https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml -f sarif -o deadfinder.sarif

Each dead link becomes a result under the DEAD_LINK rule. The broken URL is the primary location; the page it was discovered on is attached as a related location.

PNG visualization

deadfinder sitemap https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml --visualize report.png

--visualize implies --coverage. Output is a stacked bar chart of status codes per target.

Stdout vs file

Structured output requires -o. Without it the tool emits a live log to stdout only. Use -s / --silent to suppress the log entirely (for example when you're only interested in the file output).

deadfinder url https://www.example.com -o out.json -s