diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index 96e14f6bbb..a4d35ed96e 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 on:
   push:
+    branches: [ master ]
   pull_request:
     branches: [ master ]
   workflow_dispatch:
@@ -11,3 +12,4 @@ jobs:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v3
       - run: make awesome_lint
       - run: make export
+      - run: make url_check
diff --git a/.github/workflows/update-metadata.yml b/.github/workflows/update-metadata.yml
index 9b01c206e0..5ced39267f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/update-metadata.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/update-metadata.yml
@@ -20,3 +20,4 @@ jobs:
           git add software/ tags/ platforms/ licenses*.yml
           git diff-index --quiet HEAD || git commit -m "[bot] update projects metadata"
           git push
+      - run: make url_check
diff --git a/.hecat/url-check.yml b/.hecat/url-check.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4ba80e5648
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.hecat/url-check.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+steps:
+  - name: check URLs
+    module: processors/url_check
+    module_options:
+      source_directories:
+        - software
+        - tags
+      source_files:
+        - licenses.yml
+      check_keys:
+        - url
+        - source_code_url
+        - website_url
+        - demo_url
+      errors_are_fatal: True
+      exclude_regex:
+        - '^https://github.com/[\w\.\-]+/[\w\.\-]+$' # don't check URLs that will be processed by the github_metadata module
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 4ea8db3267..8da8fa4dca 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -34,6 +34,11 @@ export: install
 	hecat --config .hecat/export.yml
 	cd awesome-selfhosted && git diff --color=always
 
+.PHONY: url_check # check URLs for dead links or other connection problems
+url_check: install
+	source .venv/bin/activate && \
+	hecat --config .hecat/url-check.yml
+
 .PHONY: help # generate list of targets with descriptions
 help:
 	@grep '^.PHONY: .* #' Makefile | sed 's/\.PHONY: \(.*\) # \(.*\)/\1	\2/' | expand -t20