ACCESSIBILITY — can everyone use this page?

An automated check sees only part of accessibility. This skill owns that part with a deterministic engine, and says plainly what the engine cannot see. A page that was never audited is not accessible, and a page whose audit was never read is not fixed.

Rules

• Audit before shipping any web UI change. A blocking or major finding is a FAIL.
• Every finding names its criterion, its location, and its remediation. A finding without a criterion is an opinion, not a result.
• Never declare conforming what was not verified. The engine's check and verify gates exist to reject invented non-conformities — and invented conformities.
• Fix, then re-audit. A fix that was not re-audited is a claim, not a fix.
• A check that did not run is never reported as passed.

Steps, in order

1. Audit

python3 skills/accessibility/scripts/check_accessibility.py <page-or-glob> --out <dir>

The audit runs through the ORCINUS gate wrapper (scripts/check_accessibility.py), which calls the engine (node skills/accessibility/scripts/ultra11y.mjs audit, --fail-on major by default) after pre-checking every input. A missing input, a glob that matches nothing, or an audit of zero files is INCOMPLETE (exit 2) — the engine on its own warns and exits 0 with zero files audited and 100% conformance, which is never a pass. The engine is self-contained and install-free (Node only, no dependencies). It audits the page against RGAA 4.1.2, the French State's accessibility standard, on a WCAG 2.2 AA core; other country standards are pluggable packs. Read the JSON report it writes: each criterion carries a status (conforming, non-conforming, not applicable, manual), and each finding carries its rule, criterion, file, line, severity, message, and remediation.

2. Classify

• Blocking / major: must be fixed before shipping. A missing main landmark, an image without an alternative, a form field without a label.
• Minor: fix in the same change if it is cheap; otherwise record it in the report with a reason, not silently.
• Manual: the engine cannot decide these (for example, whether an image alternative actually describes the image). A human must judge them — the engine saying "manual" is not a pass.

3. Fix

Fix one finding at a time, starting with the blocking and major ones. Prefer native HTML first: a real <button>, a real <label>, a real <main>. Do not fix an accessibility finding by adding ARIA where a native element would do — ARIA is a patch, not a design.

4. Re-audit and gate

Re-run the audit on the fixed page. In CI, gate on it:

python3 skills/accessibility/scripts/check_accessibility.py <page-or-glob> --fail-on major

The wrapper defaults to --fail-on major: it exits 1 when a blocking or major finding exists, and exits 2 (INCOMPLETE) when an input is missing or no file was audited — a missing page is never reported as passed. (The bare engine without --fail-on reports findings and still exits 0 — a gate that cannot fail is not a gate — which is why the audit always goes through the wrapper.)

5. Verdict

• PASS: no blocking or major findings, and every manual criterion has a recorded human judgment.
• FAIL: any blocking or major finding, or any manual criterion left undecided.

Report

Return the report in this form:

• The exact engine command, its version, and its exit code.
• Each finding, with criterion, file, line, severity, and remediation.
• Each manual criterion and the human judgment recorded for it.
• The fix applied per finding, and the re-audit result.
• Verdict: PASS or FAIL, and what remains.

Scope

Static checks only. The engine checks the markup it can see; it does not see rendered behaviour — keyboard traps, focus order in a dynamic flow, or a live region that never announces. Those need a real browser (use webapp-testing) and a human with a keyboard and a screen reader. This skill does not claim a page is accessible; it claims the engine's checks passed and the manual criteria were judged.

Sources

Method, in our own words, using the ultra11y engine (maxgfr/ultra11y, MIT, licence verified from the primary LICENSE file) as-is. No code was copied from ultra11y except the engine script itself, which is bundled verbatim (see ATTRIBUTION.md for why the upstream SKILL.md was not copied verbatim).