F Kitchen Sink

Accessibility audit rules

Text spacing

Accessibility rule handbook metadata

Rule
DET.A11Y.GENERIC.TEXT_SPACING · lane deterministic · scope generic
Page status
current
page_version
2b95ed7da6ed6c79e15cdcde572915490837b361fbf80591ac4f20ef68e3586d
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: 1.4.12

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.TEXT_SPACING

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

Purpose

Avoid clipping when spacing increases (1.4.12).

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.TEXT_SPACING on the crawled URL.
  • Harness: auditor-tests/invoke-a11y-ruleset-harness.sh DET.A11Y.GENERIC.TEXT_SPACING expects ≥1 finding on the Before fixture.

Before example

Before (failing example)

Clipped paragraph text.

After example

After (passing example)

Paragraph allows extra spacing.

Evidence and remediation

  1. Reproduce with analyze-website-a11y.mjs --only-deterministic-rule-ids DET.A11Y.GENERIC.TEXT_SPACING 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.