# Accessibility Guide

> Use when planning, assessing, governing, or operating accessibility across web, mobile, desktop, documents, content, and service journeys. Triggers on WCAG version or level selection, applicable criteria, inclusive design, keyboard or assistive-technology evaluation, accessibility evidence, release gates, conformance claims, exceptions, remediation, monitoring, or exact-revision reassessment, even when the user doesn't say 'accessibility assurance'.

- Skill: `xonovex/accessibility-guide` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 7 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add xonovex/accessibility-guide`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/xonovex/accessibility-guide/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Web & Frontend
- Author: xonovex (https://skillmd.com/u/xonovex)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/xonovex/accessibility-guide

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# Accessibility Assurance

Make accessibility a versioned, testable quality and governance concern without requiring one platform, scanner, or conformance claim.

## Essentials

- **Pin the target**: record the standard, version, level, applicable criteria, exact subject revision, environments, and user journeys, see [references/assessment-and-evidence.md](references/assessment-and-evidence.md)
- **Design with affected users**: include perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust outcomes from discovery through content and interaction design, see [references/design-and-implementation.md](references/design-and-implementation.md)
- **Layer the evidence**: combine deterministic inspection, automated checks, keyboard and zoom testing, representative assistive technology, and qualified human review, see [references/assessment-and-evidence.md](references/assessment-and-evidence.md)
- **Publish criterion outcomes**: report pass, fail, not-applicable, and not-tested with origins, limitations, findings, gaps, freshness, and native references, see [references/assessment-and-evidence.md](references/assessment-and-evidence.md)
- **Govern exceptions and drift**: scope, own, expire, review, remediate, reassess, and retire accessibility decisions, see [references/governance-and-operations.md](references/governance-and-operations.md)
- **Keep tools in their lane**: platform skills own implementation APIs; scanners and agents provide evidence but never accountable conformance by themselves

## Gotchas

- An automated scanner covers only what it can observe; a clean report is not proof that every applicable criterion passes.
- `not-applicable` needs a criterion-specific reason and reviewer; it is not a synonym for untested or inconvenient.
- Conformance applies to the declared subject, scope, version, level, and dependencies. A changed UI, content path, component, platform, or assistive-technology environment may invalidate evidence.
- An exception preserves a known gap and remediation duty. It never changes a failed criterion into a pass or establishes conformance.
- Crosswalks between accessibility standards, laws, and design guidance are contextual; they do not establish equivalence, certification, or legal compliance.

## Example

```text
Target: checkout@sha256:abc · WCAG 2.2 AA · authenticated web journey
Evidence: deterministic markup checks + scanner@4.2 + keyboard/zoom + two AT/browser pairs
Outcome: 43 pass · 1 fail · 6 not applicable · 2 not tested
Decision: release blocked by profile; finding owned; scoped alternative access expires in 14 days
Reassess: exact fixed revision plus regression of adjacent journeys
```

## Progressive Disclosure

- Read [references/design-and-implementation.md](references/design-and-implementation.md) - Load when defining inclusive requirements, user journeys, content, interaction, platform ownership, or implementation handoffs
- Read [references/assessment-and-evidence.md](references/assessment-and-evidence.md) - Load when selecting applicable criteria, planning tests, assessing an exact revision, grading outcomes, or publishing accessibility evidence
- Read [references/governance-and-operations.md](references/governance-and-operations.md) - Load when composing profiles, release gates, exceptions, remediation, monitoring, drift, incident response, or retirement