Github Action to check informationalURL periodically

[ilkedemir]

Summary

Adds a GitHub Actions workflow that checks every informationalUrl link in softbinding-algorithm-list.json once per quarter and opens a tracking issue for broken ones.

How it works

• .github/workflows/check-links.yml runs on a 0 0 1 */3 * schedule (Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct), plus workflow_dispatch for manual runs.
• check_links.py extracts the values of "informationalUrl" keys, checks each with retries and backoff, and writes both a JSON report and a step summary.
• Sites that return 403/429/999 are reported separately as "blocked" rather than "broken" (bot protection rejecting non-browser requests).
• On "broken" links, the workflow creates or updates a GitHub issue labeled broken-links listing the dead links.
• permissions: issues: write is set explicitly, since the default GITHUB_TOKEN is read-only for issues otherwise.

Potential changes/improvements

• Decide if 3 months is a good interval for the action
• Add if API links can also be checked with sample files
• Decide and implement if the action should also send an automated message to the related email about the issue
• Decide and implement what happens if the link is not fixed for a while

Testing

Ran locally against softbinding-algorithm-list.json: correctly limits itself to informationalUrl values, and separates genuine dead links (e.g. docs.mentaport.xyz, DNS resolution failure) from bot-blocked false positives (e.g. iso.org, castlabs.com).

Ran on local fork: See it in action with the generated report and automatically filed issue.