Site Check

Site Check Skill

"Is it down or is it me?" is a diagnosis, not a yes/no — a site can fail at DNS, at TLS, at HTTP, or only from your network, and each failure names a different fix. This skill runs the layers in order with plain curl, reads the evidence (status codes, cert dates, resolver agreement), and answers with where it's broken, which is the answer that was actually needed.

What This Skill Produces

• The verdict — up / down-for-everyone-probably / broken-at-layer-X / likely-just-you, with the evidence
• The layer results — DNS resolution, TLS handshake + cert expiry, HTTP status, response timing
• The interpretation — what a 503 vs. a timeout vs. a cert error vs. NXDOMAIN each means, in words
• The commands — every check rerunnable

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The URL/domain — as the user experiences it (scheme and path matter; example.com up and example.com/app down is a real and common state)
• The symptom — error message, spinner, cert warning — it picks which layer to check first
• Whose site — theirs (deeper diagnostics welcome) vs. someone else's (status check, politely)

Framework: The Layer Walk

1. HTTP first (the 5-second answer): curl -sI -m 10 -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code} %{time_total}s %{remote_ip}\n" "https://example.com" — status, total time, and which IP answered in one line. 200/301 = up · 4xx = up but refusing this request · 5xx = up but broken behind the server · 000 = never connected → walk down the stack.
2. DNS when connection fails: curl -s "https://dns.google/resolve?name=example.com&type=A" — NXDOMAIN vs. records-exist separates "domain problem" from "server problem"; two public resolvers agreeing ≈ not a DNS issue (the dns-lookup skill has the full treatment).
3. TLS when the browser screamed: curl -svo /dev/null "https://example.com" 2>&1 | grep -E "expire|subject|issuer" — expired cert, wrong-host cert, or incomplete chain each read differently; quote the expiry date and say how long ago/until.
4. The just-you test: if direct checks fail but DoH shows records and the failure is connection-level, the honest options are local (DNS cache, VPN, firewall, ISP) — suggest the local moves (curl from another network if possible, flush DNS, try the resolved IP) rather than declaring the site dead from one vantage point.
5. Timing as diagnosis: -w breakdowns (time_namelookup, time_connect, time_starttransfer) locate slowness — slow DNS vs. slow TLS vs. slow server are different tickets; a 12-second time_starttransfer with fast connect is the backend's confession.

Output Format

Site Check: [url] — [time]

[The verdict: "Down at the HTTP layer — DNS and TLS fine, server returning 503; not your network." ]

[Cert questions: expiry with the countdown · Slowness: the timing breakdown and which phase owns it]

Rerun: [the curl(s)] One vantage point — "up for me" ≠ up for everyone; for your own production site, real monitoring beats spot checks.

Quality Checks

• The verdict names the failing layer, not just up/down
• Status codes are interpreted (4xx up-but-refusing vs 5xx up-but-broken vs 000 never-connected)
• Cert answers quote the expiry date with the countdown
• Connection failures trigger the DNS cross-check before any verdict
• The one-vantage-point caveat appears

Anti-Patterns

• Do not answer up/down without the layer — the layer is the diagnosis
• Do not declare a site dead from one failed local check — run the just-you branch
• Do not confuse 403/401 with down — refusing you is a form of up
• Do not hammer a struggling site — one clean check per layer, not a retry loop against someone's outage
• Do not extend into probing others' infrastructure — status and reachability, not scanning