ACCESSIBILITY.md

A simple, open format for documenting a project’s accessibility posture, automation, and contributor expectations.

Think of ACCESSIBILITY.md as a README for accessibility: a predictable place for humans and AI coding agents to find your a11y standards.

Explore Framework View on GitHub

Simple Sample ACCESSIBILITY.md

See full ACCESSIBILITY-template.md

# ACCESSIBILITY.md

## Conformance
- Target: WCAG 2.2 AA

## CI Guardrails
- axe-core checks in pull requests
- Fail build on critical a11y regressions

## Definition of Done
- Keyboard and screen-reader checks required
- No unresolved blockers in merged PRs

Why ACCESSIBILITY.md?

README files are for broad project onboarding. ACCESSIBILITY.md adds a dedicated layer for accessibility status, known gaps, and enforcement workflows.

Keeping this guidance explicit improves transparency for users, clarity for maintainers, and reliability for AI coding agents.

The Framework

Transparency & Disclosure

Publish conformance level, assistive tech coverage, and known barriers.

Operational Governance

Define issue taxonomy, severity triage, and accessibility Definition of Done.

Automated Guardrails

Enforce checks in CI and pre-commit workflows with documented rule coverage.

Reference Examples

Includes wai-yaml-ld for machine-readable WCAG standards

Examples Index

examples/README

Prompt Starter

examples/ACCESSIBILITY_PROMPT_STARTER

Prompt Generator Tool

Open the prompt generator

Action Playbook

Practical accessibility workflow guide

How to Adopt

1. Add ACCESSIBILITY.md

Create it at your repository root and link it from README.

2. Document what matters

Include conformance, known gaps, test workflow, issue labels, and escalation policy.

3. Enforce in CI

Wire accessibility checks and fail builds for high-severity regressions.

4. Keep it living

Update this file as architecture, tooling, and gaps evolve.