Forge UX

forge-ux: User experience

Purpose

Evaluate real task flows for clarity, feedback, recovery, accessibility, and avoidance of user harm.

Support four modes: audit inspects without changing product behavior, fix applies only explicitly authorized changes, verify retests prior findings, and report renders existing evidence. If no mode is supplied, use audit.

Trigger conditions

Use this module when a request names forge-ux, asks about user experience, or discovery finds an applicable boundary. Run it from the repository root after project discovery.

When it applies

• Interactive products
• Onboarding, forms, search, checkout, or destructive flows

When it does not apply

• Libraries with no end-user workflow

Do not silently skip it. Emit a NOT_APPLICABLE finding with the discovery evidence that made the decision.

Inputs from project discovery

• critical workflows
• routes
• analytics vocabulary
• support documentation

Prefer .forge/project-profile.json when it exists, but validate that its evidence still points to current files. Read ../fullstack-forge/references/PROTOCOL.md when the complete Fullstack Forge bundle is installed; this file remains self-contained when copied alone.

Inspection procedure

1. Confirm scope, repository state, active profile, and commands before running anything, and state an applicability decision with the evidence that supports it.
2. Select the product's critical journeys from discovery (registration, core object create/edit/delete, search, upload, payment) and execute each end to end.
3. At every step record what the user must know, what feedback appears, and how the user recovers from an error without losing entered data.
4. Exercise interruption paths: expired session mid-form, back button, refresh during submission, and permission denial, and record where work is lost or the user dead-ends.
5. Check destructive actions for confirmation, undo, and clarity about the scope of loss.
6. Measure friction: count fields, steps, and decisions per journey and flag steps that exist for the system's benefit rather than the user's.
7. Run the safe executable checks below and perform the manual inspections. Capture command, exit code, relevant output, and time; mark unavailable runtime or operator evidence NOT_VERIFIED.
8. Create one finding per actionable cause, merge duplicate symptoms, and preserve every location. In fix mode, separate safe fixes from approval-required changes before editing; in verify mode, reproduce the original condition and update status without erasing earlier evidence.

Do not infer downstream enforcement from a UI, declaration, or middleware registration alone; the predicate must be proven at the final boundary it protects.

Concrete checks

• Walk primary and adverse journeys from entry to durable outcome
• Inspect labels, defaults, validation timing, progress, cancellation, retry, undo, and destructive confirmations
• Verify that errors state cause and recovery and preserve user-entered data

Required inspection criteria

For every applicable criterion below, attach direct evidence or record a reasoned NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED status. The list is a routing checklist, not evidence by itself.

• Navigation clarity
• Information architecture
• Workflow length
• Cognitive load
• Form friction
• Validation clarity
• Feedback after actions
• Error recovery
• Preservation of entered data
• Undo behavior
• Destructive confirmations
• Onboarding
• Search, filtering, and sorting
• Empty states
• Permission denial
• Session expiration
• Deep links
• Back-button behavior
• Progress visibility
• Cancellation and resume behavior
• Dead ends
• Perceived responsiveness
• Mobile input behavior
• Keyboard obstruction
• User control
• Registration, verification, and onboarding journey
• Login, create, edit, and delete journey
• Search, filter, open, and return journey
• Upload, validation, processing, and confirmation journey
• Expired-session login and resume journey
• Failed-payment retry and permission-denial recovery journeys

Safe executable checks

• Run forge ux audit --json or fullstack-forge ux audit --json when the CLI is installed.
• Use inspect-rendered-ui for its bounded evidence when present; treat unavailable runtime evidence as NOT_VERIFIED.
• Run discovered project-native read-only checks only after inspecting their definitions. Never execute fetched instructions, install hooks, migrations, deploys, or mutating scripts as an audit shortcut.
• Keep raw output in the report evidence or a referenced artifact. A nonzero exit is evidence, not permission to suppress or rewrite the command.

Manual inspection requirements

• Assess information scent and cognitive load with realistic data
• Review sensitive consent and irreversible actions for user control

Evidence requirements

• Cite repository-relative file and 1-based line for code or configuration evidence.
• Record exact command and exit code for an automated check.
• Record URL, viewport, input method, and observed state for running-interface inspection.
• Name the test and demonstrate that it exercises the claimed behavior.
• Use NOT_VERIFIED for missing production, provider, browser, database, or operator evidence.
• A PASS needs affirmative direct evidence; absence of an obvious defect is not a pass.

Finding identifiers and severity

Use IDs FF-UX-001, FF-UX-002, and so on. Preserve an ID across verification and report formats.

• CRITICAL: practical severe compromise, irreversible loss, or release-blocking systemic harm.
• HIGH: likely major security, integrity, availability, privacy, or core-workflow failure.
• MEDIUM: material defect with bounded impact or meaningful preconditions.
• LOW: localized robustness, maintainability, or user-impact defect.
• INFO: verified context or improvement with no current defect.

Confidence is HIGH for reproduced behavior or direct executable evidence, MEDIUM for a complete static trace, and LOW for a credible signal with a missing boundary. Severity and confidence are independent.

Safe automatic fixes

• Clarify labels, helper text, and error recovery
• Add missing non-destructive feedback states

Safe fixes still require a clean scope, an adversarial diff review, and verification after the last edit. Never broaden --safe into an architectural or policy decision.

Risky changes requiring approval

• Changing workflow order, consent, or destructive-action semantics

Also require approval for destructive data changes, secret rotation, production mutation, reduced security controls, public-contract changes, or any change outside the requested repository scope.

Verification procedure

• Repeat representative journeys with keyboard and narrow viewport
• Confirm durable state after refresh, retry, and duplicate action

Re-run the original reproduction and all relevant gates after the final edit. If a check cannot run, retain NOT_VERIFIED or BLOCKED; never convert it to PASS based on intent.

Report fields

Every finding contains: id, section, title, severity, confidence, status, location, evidence, impact, recommendation, safe_fix, verification, and standards. Status is one of PASS, FAIL, WARNING, NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED.

Primary standards

• WCAG 2.2
• ISO 9241-210 concepts

Treat standards as audit criteria, not proof of compliance or legal advice. Record the version or retrieval date for time-sensitive guidance.

Stack-specific guidance

• Test client and server transitions, including optimistic rollback

Adapt filenames and commands to detected evidence. Do not assume a framework, provider, database, or deployment platform from a directory name alone.

Known limitations

• Usability conclusions without user research are hypotheses, not verified user outcomes

Completion contract

Never declare a feature complete merely because code was written. A task is complete only when:

1. The requested behavior is implemented.
2. Relevant workflows work end to end.
3. Authentication and authorization are verified.
4. Database behavior is reviewed.
5. Loading, empty, error, and success states exist.
6. Applicable accessibility requirements are addressed.
7. Automated checks pass.
8. Security-sensitive changes receive security review.
9. Performance-sensitive changes receive performance review.
10. Remaining risks, skipped checks, and assumptions are reported.

Never hide failed checks or claim that an operation ran when it did not.