Files
clide/decisions/accessibility.md
T
jpmschweitzerandClaude 6e6546fe32 clean-house sweep: anchor drift, app/-prefix paths, D-59 sunset
Fixes 3 substring-truncated cross-reference anchors so they match
the full heading slug:
- D-3 link in architecture.md
- D-40 link in process.md (heading gained the [SUPERSEDED] tag)
- Q-15 link in questions-process.md

Strips the legacy `app/` prefix from path references in 5 files —
the dirs were flattened to repo root in the Flutter rebuild
(D-56). Three "was `app/...`" historical references in D-5 and
D-56 are deliberately preserved as record of the dissolution.

Adds an inline (tracked in T-88) note to D-59 so the
"must track dugite-native releases for security updates" intent
is wired to a backlog item — RULE-SUNSET-WITHOUT-TICKET would
otherwise keep flagging it on every sweep.

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-05-06 16:40:38 +02:00

2.5 KiB

Accessibility + i18n Decisions

A11y + i18n are Tier-0 contracts, not Tier-6 polish.


D-20: A11y is a Tier-0 contract

  • Date: 2026-04-21
  • Decision: Every widget primitive wraps its interaction surface in a Semantics node at the point of creation. A11y coverage is a test-time gate (ci/test_a11y.sh), not a post-hoc polish pass. ensureSemantics() fires at app boot; Flutter's semantics tree is always populated.
  • Rationale: Retrofitting a11y onto a grown UI is what every project that skips this promises to do later and then doesn't. Making it a Tier-0 contract costs one Semantics line per primitive and a semantic-coverage test; postponing costs a rewrite.
  • Cost: Widget authors maintain correct labels; tests reject new primitives without semantics. Enforced by test/a11y/ coverage tests.
  • Raised by: 2026-04-21 planning.

D-21: i18n is a Tier-0 contract (fframe pattern + locale-fallback chain)

  • Date: 2026-04-21
  • Decision: All user-facing strings resolve through a namespaced i18n catalogue loader ported from fframe's text-driven pattern, extended with a locale-fallback chain fframe lacks. JSON per locale; I18n.of(context).t('namespace.key', {vars}). Missing keys resolve down the chain (e.g. en_GBen → default), never fail silently; missing at the base locale logs a dev-mode error.
  • Rationale: Flutter's intl + ARB codegen is inflexible for plugin-contributed catalogs (see R-4) — we need per-extension catalogs that merge without a codegen step. fframe's shape fits; its silent-fallback behaviour does not, so we add the chain.
  • Cost: JSON has no comments and no trailing commas; translation tooling has to accept that. Separate i18n facade on every feature.
  • Raised by: 2026-04-21 planning.

D-22: WCAG-AA contrast gate on bundled themes

  • Date: 2026-04-21
  • Decision: Every bundled theme must pass a WCAG-AA contrast check on its canonical token pairs (text/background, link/background, focus-ring/background) at test time. ci/test_a11y.sh runs the gate; CI fails on regressions.
  • Rationale: Themes drift under "looks nicer" tweaks; contrast regressions land silently. Running the gate on every PR is the cheapest insurance. Ran the gate on initial themes — caught one summer-night muted token at 2.81:1 (below AA), fixed before landing.
  • Cost: Third-party themes (Tier 6) won't be gated until an extension-time test hook lands. Bundled themes are gated today.
  • Raised by: 2026-04-21 planning.