Baseline first, then watch for regressions
The baseline is the difference between a report and a monitor. Mortise needs one quiet crawl before a later failure means something changed.
No card required. 1 site and 200 pages on the free plan.
What the baseline stores
Mortise stores link URLs, the page they were found on, the classification, and the status code. It does not keep page HTML. A 404 seen on the baseline is a known issue: it can show under “waiting for a second crawl,” then under “currently broken” if it fails again, and it does not enter New breaks.
What “working” means here
A link is in good standing when its classification is ok (an HTTP status from 200 through 399). That includes redirects in that range. From there, two later crawls of 404 or 410 create a new break. If you only ever crawl once, you have a baseline and no alert. That is expected.
How to read the first result
When the baseline finishes, look at pages crawled and links checked. If pages crawled is zero, the start URL did not yield a page: verification, robots.txt, or reachability is the thing to fix. A long currently-broken list after the second crawl is the existing mess. Work through it when you want. It will not keep emailing you.
Questions
Does the baseline email me?
No. New-break email and webhooks are skipped on the baseline crawl.
I fixed an old 404. Will Mortise notice if it breaks again?
If a later crawl classifies the URL as ok, it becomes eligible again. A new pair of 404 or 410 crawls can then alert.
Can I rebuild the baseline?
Delete the site and add it again to start over. That removes stored history for the site. There is no separate reset button.