Run five website checks before your next release

01Start with one page

Lighthouse can run just its SEO category ^[1]. This command gives you a focused report to work through before scanning more pages.

npx lighthouse https://example.com --only-categories=seo

Read each failed audit and check the affected element. A passing automated report does not prove that every page is indexed or that its content answers a visitor's question.

02Check across the site

Unlighthouse discovers pages and runs Lighthouse audits across them. Its current homepage documents the v1 beta command and requires Node.js 24.13.1 or later ^[2].

npx unlighthouse@beta --site https://example.com

This explicitly selects a beta release. Review the discovered URLs before treating the report as coverage of your whole site. Pages behind authentication or without discoverable links need separate attention.

03Find broken links

lychee checks URLs in websites, Markdown and HTML. On macOS, its documented Homebrew installation is ^[3]:

brew install lychee
lychee https://example.com

Inspect failures before changing links. An unavailable destination or a server that blocks automated requests needs a different response from a typo in your own URL.

04Repeat audits after changes

Lighthouse CI runs audits and can enforce assertions in a build process ^[4]. Its setup needs a configuration file describing what to collect and check.

npm install -g @lhci/cli

Follow the linked getting-started guide to configure your site's build directory or URLs. Once that configuration exists, run:

lhci autorun

Choose assertions that reflect the pages you are releasing, then compare results after changes. Installing the CLI alone does not add a check to your deployment pipeline.

05Measure visits in the browser

The web-vitals package measures Core Web Vitals in the browser ^[5]. Install it in a project with a client-side build:

npm install web-vitals

Start with the documented console example:

import { onCLS, onINP, onLCP } from 'web-vitals';

onCLS(console.log);
onINP(console.log);
onLCP(console.log);

Some callbacks wait for interaction or a change in page visibility. This example only logs locally. Collecting measurements across visitors requires connecting the callbacks to an analytics endpoint ^[5].

06Keep the results separate

Use the page audit to identify issues, the site scan to find repeated problems, and the link checker to find broken destinations. Add repeatable build checks once the configuration is useful. Browser measurements then help you see how released pages behave during actual visits.