Github A11y Scanner Integration

GitHub Accessibility Scanner Integration

The GitHub Accessibility Scanner is an official GitHub Action that scans web pages for accessibility violations and creates GitHub issues for each finding. The agent ecosystem integrates with scanner-created issues to provide a unified view of accessibility across automated CI scanning and manual agent-driven audits.

How It Works

1. The scanner runs as a GitHub Actions workflow on push, PR, or schedule
2. It scans configured URLs using browser-based accessibility testing
3. For each violation, it creates a GitHub issue with structured details
4. Optionally, it assigns issues to GitHub Copilot for automated fix PRs
5. The agent ecosystem detects these issues and incorporates them into audits and reports

Setup

Use the setup-github-scanner prompt to configure the scanner in your repository:

In Copilot Chat: Select the setup-github-scanner prompt from the prompt picker.

Or manually create .github/workflows/accessibility-scanner.yml:

name: Accessibility Scanner

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  issues: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Scan for accessibility violations
    steps:
      - name: Run accessibility scanner
        uses: github/accessibility-scanner@v2
        with:
          urls: |
            https://your-site.com
            https://your-site.com/about
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Scanner Inputs

Input	Required	Description
urls	Yes	Newline-separated list of URLs to scan
token	Yes	GitHub token with issues:write permission
repository	No	Target repository for issues (default: current)
cache_key	No	Custom cache key for deduplication
login_url	No	Login URL if authentication is required
skip_copilot_assignment	No	Set to true to disable Copilot auto-assignment
include_screenshots	No	Set to true to attach screenshots to issues

Agent Integration Points

scanner-bridge Agent

The scanner-bridge is a hidden helper agent that bridges CI scanner data into the agent ecosystem. It is not user-invokable -- other agents call it automatically.

What it does:

• Detects scanner workflows in .github/workflows/
• Fetches scanner-created issues from the GitHub API
• Normalizes findings into the standard severity model (Critical/Serious/Moderate/Minor)
• Deduplicates against local axe-core scan results
• Tracks Copilot fix assignment status

web-accessibility-wizard

The wizard automatically detects the scanner during Phase 0 and correlates findings in Phase 9:

• Phase 0 Step 0: Silently checks for scanner workflows and dispatches scanner-bridge
• Phase 9: Merges scanner findings with local axe-core scan results; issues found by both sources get upgraded to high confidence
• Phase 10: Reports scanner metrics, correlation data, and scanner-only findings

insiders-a11y-tracker

The tracker includes CI Scanner Issue Discovery in its search patterns:

• Searches for author:app/github-actions label:accessibility to find scanner-created issues
• Tracks Copilot fix lifecycle (assigned, PR open, PR merged)
• Tags findings with [CI Scanner] prefix in reports

daily-briefing

The briefing includes a CI Scanner section in accessibility updates:

• Lists scanner-created issues with severity and Copilot fix status
• Adds a CI scanner issues row to the Dashboard Summary

issue-tracker

The issue tracker recognizes scanner-created issues:

• Scanner Triage mode for listing and triaging CI accessibility findings
• Tags scanner issues with [CI Scanner] for easy filtering

Confidence Model

Issues are scored with confidence levels based on how many sources detected them:

Sources	Confidence	Description
Agent review + axe-core + CI scanner	Highest	Triple-source confirmation
Agent review + CI scanner	High	Dual-source confirmation
axe-core + CI scanner	High	Dual automated confirmation
CI scanner only	Medium	Single automated source

Delta Tracking

Scanner findings are tracked across runs using the standard delta model:

Status	Meaning
Fixed	Was in previous scan, not in current
New	Not in previous scan, now detected
Persistent	Detected in both scans
Regressed	Was marked fixed, now reappeared