Broken Link Checker MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides broken link checking capabilities using the broken-link-checker library.

Features

• Check Single Page Links: Scan all links on a single HTML page for broken links

• Check Entire Site: Recursively crawl and check all links across an entire website

• Detailed reporting including HTTP status codes, broken reasons, and link metadata

• Support for excluding external links and respecting robots.txt

• Two deployment modes: Local stdio or Remote HTTP/SSE

Installation

Deployment Options

Option 1: Local Usage (stdio transport)

Use index.js for local Claude Desktop integration.

Option 2: Remote Usage (HTTP/SSE transport)

Use server.js for remote deployment with ngrok or similar proxy services.

Usage with Claude Desktop (Local)

Step 1: Configure Claude Desktop

Add this server to your Claude Desktop configuration file:

MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Make sure to update the path to match your actual installation directory.

Step 2: Restart Claude Desktop

After updating the configuration, restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect.

Step 3: Use the Tools

The MCP server provides two main tools:

1. check_page_links

Check all links on a single HTML page.

Parameters:

• url (required): The URL of the page to check

• excludeExternalLinks (optional): If true, only check internal links (default: false)

• honorRobotExclusions (optional): If true, respect robots.txt (default: true)

Example:

2. check_site

Recursively crawl and check all links across an entire website.

Parameters:

• url (required): The starting URL of the site to check

• excludeExternalLinks (optional): If true, only check internal links (default: false)

• honorRobotExclusions (optional): If true, respect robots.txt (default: true)

• maxSocketsPerHost (optional): Maximum concurrent requests per host (default: 1)

Example:

Remote Deployment with HTTP/SSE Transport

For remote deployments (e.g., deploying on a VPS and connecting via ngrok), use the HTTP/SSE server:

Step 1: Start the HTTP Server

The server will start on http://localhost:3000 (or your specified port).

Step 2: Expose with ngrok (or alternative)

ngrok will provide you with a public URL like: https://abc123.ngrok.io

Step 3: Configure Claude Desktop for Remote Connection

Update your Claude Desktop configuration to use the HTTP/SSE transport:

MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Replace your-ngrok-url.ngrok.io with your actual ngrok URL.

Step 4: Test the Connection

1. Check the health endpoint: https://your-ngrok-url.ngrok.io/health

2. Restart Claude Desktop

3. Ask Claude to check links on a webpage

Environment Variables

You can configure the server using environment variables:

Production Deployment

For production deployments, consider:

1. Use a process manager (PM2, systemd):

   npm install -g pm2 pm2 start server.js --name broken-link-checker-mcp pm2 save pm2 startup

2. Use a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy) for HTTPS

3. Add authentication if exposing publicly

4. Monitor logs and resource usage

Output Format

Both tools return JSON with the following structure:

Development

The main server code is in index.js. The server uses:

• @modelcontextprotocol/sdk for MCP protocol implementation

• broken-link-checker for link checking functionality

License

MIT