Validate Markdown References

Scan markdown files for broken internal links. Returns clean JSON output.

When to Use

• Before committing documentation changes
• When the link-checker agent needs to verify its findings
• Manual validation of plugin documentation integrity
• CI/CD pipelines for documentation quality gates

Quick Start

# Run from project root
python .prism/plugins/prism-devtools/skills/validate-markdown-refs/scripts/validate-refs.py

# Or with custom directories
python validate-refs.py --directories .claude .prism

# Include archive directories
python validate-refs.py --include-archive

What It Checks

• Markdown links: [text](path) and [ref]: path syntax
• Relative paths: Resolved from source file location

What It Skips

• URLs (http://, https://, mailto:)
• Anchor-only links (#section)
• Links inside fenced code blocks
• Template variables ({{...}}, ${...})
• plugins/cache directory (duplicates)

Output

Returns JSON to stdout. See output format for schema.

Example:

{
  "status": "FAIL",
  "summary": {
    "files_scanned": 127,
    "broken_links": 3
  },
  "broken_links": [
    {
      "source_file": ".prism/plugins/prism-devtools/skills/README.md",
      "line": 58,
      "target_path": "./orca-local-setup/SKILL.md",
      "error": "File not found"
    }
  ]
}

Exit Codes

Integration with Link-Checker Agent

The link-checker agent can invoke this script to verify its findings:

python validate-refs.py

JSON is the default (and only) output format, providing deterministic validation to complement the agent's AI-based scanning.