wtf is a11y?

A11y is a command-line tool that checks your website for accessibility problems, things like missing image descriptions, poor color contrast, or HTML structure that makes it hard for screen readers to navigate. You give it a URL or a local HTML file, and it produces a report telling you what passed, what failed, and what needs fixing. You install it globally and run a simple command like pointing it at a website address. It loads the page using a headless browser, runs Google Chrome's accessibility audit rules against it, and spits out results. Each check comes back as PASS, FAIL, or NA (meaning the rule didn't apply because the relevant elements weren't on the page). You can audit multiple URLs at once, save results to a file, adjust the viewport size to test different screen dimensions, or add a delay before the audit runs to let dynamic content load. Beyond the command line, developers can also use it as a JavaScript module to run audits programmatically and work with the structured results. This is useful for web developers, designers, and product teams who want to catch accessibility issues early, before users with disabilities encounter them or before a compliance audit flags them. For example, if you're building a marketing site, you could run it against your staging URL before each release. If you're working on a static site locally, you can point it at your local files and get immediate feedback. The project is currently most reliable for static sites. The team is still working on robust support for complex JavaScript applications built with frameworks like React or Angular, where content loads dynamically. It integrates with Grunt-based build setups, and a companion tool exists for that workflow. One caveat: it relies on PhantomJS under the hood, which occasionally needs manual installation if the automatic setup fails.