Credify

A robust Rust library for validating LinkedIn profile URLs with a focus on accuracy and data quality. Perfect for data validation pipelines, lead generation tools, and any application that needs to verify LinkedIn profile URLs.

New in v0.2.0: Enhanced LLM support with extremely verbose validation reports including timestamps, severity levels, detailed explanations, and comprehensive action suggestions.

🚀 Features

• 🔍 Format Validation - Quickly check if a URL follows the LinkedIn profile pattern
• ✅ Existence Verification - Verify that profiles actually exist (with intelligent fallback)
• 🤖 LLM-Friendly Output - Structured validation reports designed for AI/LLM consumption
• 📝 Verbose Validation Reports - Detailed explanations with timestamps, severity levels, and action suggestions
• ⚡ Async & Sync APIs - Choose based on your application architecture
• 🛡️ No Panics - Comprehensive error handling throughout
• 📊 Detailed Error Types - Know exactly why validation failed
• 💡 Smart Suggestions - Get 5-7 actionable suggestions for each validation scenario

📦 Installation

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
credify = "0.2.1"

Or use cargo add:

cargo add credify

🔧 Usage

Quick Format Check (No Network Calls)

Perfect for validating user input before making network requests:

use credify::is_valid_linkedin_profile_format;

fn main() {
    let urls = vec![
        "https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe",
        "https://linkedin.com/in/jane-smith",
        "https://www.linkedin.com/company/acme",  // Not a profile URL
        "https://google.com/in/someone",          // Wrong domain
    ];

    for url in urls {
        if is_valid_linkedin_profile_format(url) {
            println!("✅ {} - Valid format", url);
        } else {
            println!("❌ {} - Invalid format", url);
        }
    }
}

Full Validation with Existence Check (Blocking)

Verify that a LinkedIn profile actually exists:

use credify::{LinkedInValidator, LinkedInUrlError};

fn main() {
    let validator = LinkedInValidator::new().expect("Failed to create validator");
    let url = "https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe";
    
    match validator.is_valid_linkedin_profile_url(url) {
        Ok(_) => println!("✅ Profile exists!"),
        Err(LinkedInUrlError::ProfileNotFound) => println!("❌ Profile not found"),
        Err(LinkedInUrlError::AuthenticationRequired) => {
            println!("⚠️  LinkedIn requires authentication - cannot verify")
        },
        Err(e) => println!("❌ Error: {}", e),
    }
}

Async Validation

For async applications using Tokio:

use credify::validate_linkedin_url_async;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let url = "https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe";
    
    match validate_linkedin_url_async(url).await {
        Ok(_) => println!("✅ Profile exists!"),
        Err(e) => println!("❌ Invalid: {}", e),
    }
}

LLM-Friendly Validation Functions (New in v0.2.0!)

The library provides dedicated functions that return extremely verbose, structured validation reports perfect for LLM/AI agent consumption:

use credify::{validate_for_llm, validate_for_llm_async};

// Synchronous validation
let result = validate_for_llm("https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe");
println!("{}", result);
// Output:
// === LINKEDIN PROFILE VALIDATION REPORT ===
//
// TIMESTAMP: 2025-07-31T13:10:54.691091+00:00
// INPUT_URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe
//
// VALIDATION_RESULT: SUCCESS
// VALIDATION_STATUS: PASSED
// PROFILE_EXISTS: TRUE
// URL_FORMAT: VALID
// DOMAIN_VERIFIED: TRUE
// PROFILE_ACCESSIBLE: TRUE
// LINKEDIN_USERNAME: johndoe
//
// DETAILED_EXPLANATION:
// The provided URL has been successfully validated. The LinkedIn profile exists and is accessible. 
// The URL follows the correct LinkedIn profile format and the domain has been verified as authentic. 
// The profile page returned a successful response, confirming the profile is active and publicly viewable.
//
// SUGGESTED_ACTIONS:
// 1. Proceed with profile data extraction using LinkedIn API or web scraping tools
// 2. Cache this validation result to avoid repeated network requests
// 3. Store the profile URL in your database as a verified LinkedIn profile
// 4. Consider extracting additional profile metadata (name, headline, etc.)
// 5. Set up monitoring to periodically re-validate the profile existence
//
// RECOMMENDED_NEXT_STEP: Extract profile data using appropriate LinkedIn data extraction methods
//
// === END OF VALIDATION REPORT ===

// Asynchronous validation
let result = validate_for_llm_async("https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe").await;
// Returns identical verbose format

The enhanced validation reports include:

• Header with Timestamp: ISO 8601 timestamp for tracking
• Comprehensive Status Fields: Multiple status indicators for different aspects
• Severity Levels: ERROR_SEVERITY field for prioritization
• Detailed Explanations: 2-3 sentences explaining what happened and why
• Multiple Suggested Actions: 5-7 specific, actionable suggestions per scenario
• Recommended Next Steps: Clear guidance on the immediate next action
• Additional Metadata: HTTP status codes, actual domains, LinkedIn-specific responses

🤖 Why LLM-Friendly Validation Matters

In the age of AI agents and autonomous systems, validation tools need to provide more than just boolean results. The validate_for_llm functions are specifically designed to empower LLM agents with:

1. Context-Rich Decision Making

Traditional validation returns simple true/false or error codes. LLM agents need context to understand:

• Why validation failed (detailed explanations)
• What exactly went wrong (specific error types with severity)
• When the validation occurred (timestamps for tracking)
• How to fix the issue (multiple suggested actions)

2. Actionable Intelligence

Each validation report includes 5-7 suggested actions, enabling LLM agents to:

• Automatically retry with different strategies
• Provide meaningful feedback to users
• Make intelligent decisions about next steps
• Handle edge cases appropriately

3. Planning Support

The verbose output helps LLM agents in their planning phase by providing:

• Severity levels to prioritize issues
• Recommended next steps for immediate action
• Alternative approaches when primary validation fails
• Detailed metadata for debugging and logging

Example: How LLMs Benefit

let result = validate_for_llm("https://linkedin.com/in/johndoe");

// An LLM can parse this structured output to:
// 1. Understand if the profile exists
// 2. Get specific error details if it doesn't
// 3. Receive multiple suggestions for resolution
// 4. Make informed decisions about retries or alternatives
// 5. Provide helpful feedback to end users

Common LLM agent scenarios:

• Lead Generation: Validate profiles before adding to CRM
• Data Enrichment: Verify profiles before fetching additional data
• Automation Workflows: Make decisions based on profile validity
• Error Recovery: Intelligently handle validation failures

📊 Error Types

The library provides detailed, LLM-friendly error messages:

⚠️ Important Notes

LinkedIn's Anti-Bot Protection

LinkedIn actively prevents automated profile checking and may:

• Return status code 999 for suspected bot traffic
• Show an authentication wall (authwall)
• Rate limit requests from the same IP

When encountering these protections, the library returns an AuthenticationRequired error. This doesn't mean the profile doesn't exist - it means LinkedIn is preventing automated verification.

Best Practices

1. Rate Limiting: Add delays between requests (2-5 seconds recommended)
2. Batch Processing: Process URLs in batches with delays
3. Format-First: Use format validation when existence checking isn't critical
4. Error Handling: Always handle the AuthenticationRequired case gracefully

📚 Examples

The library includes several examples demonstrating different use cases:

# Basic usage example
cargo run --example basic

# Batch validation with rate limiting
cargo run --example batch_validation

# LLM-friendly output format
cargo run --example llm_friendly

# Simple LLM validation example
cargo run --example llm_simple

🛠️ Development

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run tests with output
cargo test -- --nocapture

# Check code quality
cargo clippy -- -D warnings

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Build documentation
cargo doc --open

# Run all checks before committing
cargo check && cargo test && cargo clippy && cargo fmt

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Please make sure to:

1. Update tests as appropriate
2. Run cargo fmt and cargo clippy
3. Update documentation for new features
4. Add examples if applicable

📄 License

This project is licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built with:

• reqwest - HTTP client
• url - URL parsing
• regex - Pattern matching
• tokio - Async runtime

Made with ❤️ by Hamze Ghalebi