F Kitchen Sink

Accessibility audit rules

Status messages

Accessibility rule handbook metadata

Rule
DET.A11Y.GENERIC.STATUS_MESSAGES · lane deterministic · scope generic
Page status
current
page_version
6a73feb0ea7b62a078bb83c31912fe6492b1eaf706aa8405ec360f5005557089
generated_at
2026-05-28T05:09:12.000Z
registry_fingerprint
b3797010c3ca988bb0d21d5e85d4efece0b9e83f311c2d4981ebbf402df7a7c2

Related WCAG success criteria

Indicative mapping for compliance reporting — not a conformance claim. Criteria: 4.1.3

How this rule is checked

Deterministic lane — scope generic. Detected by det-a11y-generic-*.check.js or the axe lane for WCAG-tagged violations.

  • Harness: auditor-tests/invoke-a11y-ruleset-harness.sh on the Before fixture.
  • Audit: analyze-website-a11y.mjs --only-deterministic-rule-ids DET.A11Y.GENERIC.STATUS_MESSAGES

Module: docs/design/a11y-audit/deterministic-a11y-rules.md#det-a11y-generic-status-messages. See Before / After below.

Purpose

Dynamic status needs role or aria-live (4.1.3).

Passing signals

  • DOM and/or repo signals satisfy the rule implementation in tools/website-a11y-auditor.
  • For axe-backed WCAG criteria, use --lanes axe,det with an appropriate --standard preset.

Failing signals

  • Auditor emits a finding with ruleId DET.A11Y.GENERIC.STATUS_MESSAGES on the crawled URL.
  • Harness: auditor-tests/invoke-a11y-ruleset-harness.sh DET.A11Y.GENERIC.STATUS_MESSAGES expects ≥1 finding on the Before fixture.

Before example

Before (failing example)

Saved — no live region.

After example

After (passing example)

Saved successfully.

Evidence and remediation

  1. Reproduce with analyze-website-a11y.mjs --only-deterministic-rule-ids DET.A11Y.GENERIC.STATUS_MESSAGES when lane is deterministic.
  2. Apply the After markup pattern (or fix generator source for KS rules).
  3. Re-run harness or audit until the rule is clean on the target URL.