Pa11y

Pa11y is your automated accessibility testing pal. It runs accessibility tests on your pages via the command line or Node.js, so you can automate your testing process.

[![NPM version][shield-npm]][info-npm] [![Node.js version support][shield-node]][info-node] [![Build status][shield-build]][info-build] [![LGPL-3.0-only licensed][shield-license]][info-license]

On the command line:

pa11y https://example.com

In JavaScript:

const pa11y = require('pa11y');

pa11y('https://example.com').then((results) => {
    // Use the results
});

Requirements

Pa11y 8 requires [Node.js][node] 18 or 20. An older version of Node.js can be used with Pa11y 6 or below.

Linux and macOS

To install [Node.js][node] you can use [nvm][nvm]. For example, to install with nvm with [Homebrew][brew], and then install the latest version of Node:

brew install nvm
nvm install node
nvm install-latest-npm

Alternatively, download a pre-built package from the [Node.js][node] website for your operating system.

Windows

On Windows 10, download a pre-built package from the [Node.js][node] website. Pa11y will be usable via the bundled Node.js application as well as the Windows command prompt.

Command-line interface

Install Pa11y globally with [npm][npm]:

npm install -g pa11y

$ pa11y --help

Usage: pa11y [options] 

  Options:

    -V, --version                  output the version number
    -n, --environment              output details about the environment Pa11y will run in
    -s, --standard           the accessibility standard to use: WCAG2A, WCAG2AA (default), WCAG2AAA – only used by htmlcs runner
    -r, --reporter       the reporter to use: cli (default), csv, json
    -e, --runner           the test runners to use: htmlcs (default), axe
    -l, --level             the level of issue to fail on (exit with code 2): error, warning, notice
    -T, --threshold        permit this number of errors, warnings, or notices, otherwise fail with exit code 2
    -i, --ignore           types and codes of issues to ignore, a repeatable value or separated by semi-colons
    --include-notices              Include notices in the report
    --include-warnings             Include warnings in the report
    -R, --root-element   a CSS selector used to limit which part of a page is tested
    -E, --hide-elements      a CSS selector to hide elements from testing, selectors can be comma separated
    -c, --config