golang/go

all: builders and TryBots should check documentation for broken links

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#37,047 opened on Feb 5, 2020

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BuildersDocumentationNeedsInvestigationTestinghelp wanted

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Description

We occasionally end up with broken or outdated links in documentation (see #46545, https://github.com/golang/go/issues/37042#issuecomment-582448476, #27860, #21951, #19244).

Testing for broken links would not be entirely trivial, but nonetheless pretty straightforward to implement: we have an HTML parser in golang.org/x/net/html, and it is easy enough to issue a HEAD request for link targets to see if they resolve. (For links with anchors, we would probably want to also check the Content-Type header and then parse the actual linked HTML to ensure that the anchor exists.)

CC @golang/osp-team

Contributor guide

Research direction
Implement a Go tool using golang.org/x/net/html to parse HTML documentation, send HEAD requests to each link, verify content type for anchors, and report broken links. Integrate with the build system (TryBot) to run automatically on documentation changes.
Tech stack
go
Domain
documentationdevops
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
GoHTML parsingHTTP/HTTPS requests
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
65