Options Reference

This page provides a complete reference of all command-line options available in DeadFinder.

Commands

DeadFinder supports the following commands:

url <URL> - Scan a single URL
file <FILE> - Scan URLs from a file
sitemap <SITEMAP-URL> - Scan URLs from a sitemap
pipe - Scan URLs from STDIN
completion <SHELL> - Generate shell completion script
version - Show version information

Global Options

These options are available for all scan commands (url, file, sitemap, pipe).

Performance Options

Option	Alias	Type	Default	Description
`--concurrency`	`-c`	Number	50	Number of concurrent workers
`--timeout`	`-t`	Number	10	Timeout in seconds for each request

Output Options

Option	Alias	Type	Default	Description
`--output`	`-o`	String	-	File path to write results
`--output-format`	`-f`	String	json	Output format: json, yaml, or csv
`--silent`	`-s`	Boolean	false	Suppress progress output
`--verbose`	-	Boolean	false	Enable verbose output
`--debug`	-	Boolean	false	Enable debug output

HTTP Options

Option	Alias	Type	Default	Description
`--include30x`	`-r`	Boolean	false	Include 30x redirections as dead links
`--headers`	`-H`	Array	[]	Custom HTTP headers for initial request
`--worker-headers`	-	Array	[]	Custom HTTP headers for worker requests
`--user-agent`	-	String	Mozilla/5.0...	User-Agent string for requests
`--proxy`	`-p`	String	-	Proxy server URL
`--proxy-auth`	-	String	-	Proxy authentication (username:password)

Filtering Options

Option	Alias	Type	Default	Description
`--match`	`-m`	String	-	Only include URLs matching this regex pattern
`--ignore`	`-i`	String	-	Ignore URLs matching this regex pattern

Analysis Options

Option	Alias	Type	Default	Description
`--coverage`	-	Boolean	false	Enable coverage analysis
`--visualize`	-	String	-	Generate visualization image file

Examples

Performance Tuning

Increase concurrency for faster scans:

deadfinder url https://example.com --concurrency=100

Set a longer timeout for slow sites:

deadfinder url https://example.com --timeout=30

Output Control

Save results in YAML format:

deadfinder url https://example.com -f yaml -o results.yaml

Run in silent mode:

deadfinder url https://example.com --silent

HTTP Configuration

Add custom headers:

deadfinder url https://example.com \
  --headers "Authorization: Bearer token" \
  --headers "X-API-Key: secret"

Use a proxy:

deadfinder url https://example.com \
  --proxy="http://localhost:8080" \
  --proxy-auth="user:pass"

Custom User-Agent:

deadfinder url https://example.com --user-agent="MyBot/1.0"

Filtering

Match only API endpoints:

deadfinder url https://example.com --match="api|v1|v2"

Ignore static resources:

deadfinder url https://example.com --ignore="css|js|png|jpg"

Combine filters:

deadfinder url https://example.com \
  --match="docs|blog" \
  --ignore="static|cdn"

Analysis

Enable coverage analysis:

deadfinder url https://example.com --coverage

Generate visualization:

deadfinder url https://example.com --visualize=report.png

Both together:

deadfinder url https://example.com --coverage --visualize=report.png

Output Format Details

JSON Format

The JSON output follows this structure:

{
  "https://example.com": [
    "https://example.com/broken-link1",
    "https://example.com/broken-link2"
  ],
  "coverage": {
    "total_tested": 100,
    "total_dead": 5,
    "overall_coverage_percentage": 95.0
  }
}

YAML Format

The YAML output provides the same information in YAML format:

---
https://example.com:
  - https://example.com/broken-link1
  - https://example.com/broken-link2
coverage:
  total_tested: 100
  total_dead: 5
  overall_coverage_percentage: 95.0

CSV Format

The CSV output is a flat structure:

target,url
https://example.com,https://example.com/broken-link1
https://example.com,https://example.com/broken-link2

Shell Completion

DeadFinder supports shell completion for bash, zsh, and fish. Generate the completion script for your shell:

Bash

deadfinder completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/deadfinder

Or add to your .bashrc:

eval "$(deadfinder completion bash)"

Zsh

deadfinder completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completion/_deadfinder

Make sure your .zshrc includes:

fpath=(~/.zsh/completion $fpath)
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

Fish

deadfinder completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/deadfinder.fish

Environment Variables

DeadFinder doesn't use environment variables for configuration, but you can set defaults in your shell profile:

# Example .bashrc/.zshrc aliases
alias df='deadfinder'
alias df-silent='deadfinder --silent'
alias df-verbose='deadfinder --verbose'