AccessReady

Know if your deliverable is AccessReady before you send it. A Section 508 preflight assistant and Evidence Pack generator for communications teams shipping government-facing content.

🔗 Try the live demo → — upload files in your browser, no install required.

AccessReady is a Section 508 preflight assistant for communications deliverables. It helps teams identify common accessibility risks, organize remediation, and export review documentation before publishing or sending content to a government-facing client.

AccessReady supports accessibility review workflows. It does not guarantee legal compliance, and does not replace expert audit, PDF remediation, or VPAT/ACR creation. Pair it with manual review before delivery.

The problem it solves

Communications teams discover 508 issues too late — after the PDF, report, or page is already finalized and approvals are stacking up. Existing tools find issues, but rarely explain fixes in plain English for non-developers, and almost never produce the documentation a client or program officer actually wants: what was checked, what was fixed, what still needs manual review, and who approved delivery.

AccessReady focuses on the moment teams actually feel pain: right before the handoff.

Who it's for

• Government contractors submitting deliverables to federal / state / local clients
• Communications teams creating PDFs, reports, newsletters, webinar pages, slide decks, and social copy
• Universities and nonprofits with public-facing content
• Small agencies that can't afford heavy enterprise accessibility platforms
• Freelancers serving public-sector, health, or science clients

How AccessReady fits alongside Acrobat and Office

Strong accessibility checkers already exist, and AccessReady does not try to replace them:

• Adobe Acrobat Pro is the right tool for deep PDF/UA tag remediation.
• Microsoft Word & PowerPoint have a built-in Accessibility Checker for individual source files.
• axe, WAVE, and Lighthouse are excellent for live HTML pages.

What none of those do is take a whole deliverable of mixed formats in one pass and hand back a client-ready evidence package. That's AccessReady's lane:

	Acrobat / Office checker	Browser a11y tools	AccessReady
One file at a time	✅	✅	✅
HTML + Markdown + DOCX + PPTX + PDF in one run	—	—	✅
Plain-English fix per finding	partial	partial	✅
508 Evidence Pack (methodology, sign-off, remaining risks)	—	—	✅
Runs automatically in CI / GitHub Actions	—	partial	✅

Use AccessReady as the deliverable gate: it tells a team what to fix and where across every file in a project, then documents the work for the client — before the deeper single-file tools do final remediation and sign-off.

What it checks

• Image alt text (HTML, Markdown, DOCX, PPTX)
• Vague link text ("click here," "read more," raw URLs)
• Page / document title and language
• Heading order (skipped levels)
• Tables without detectable headers
• HTML buttons, forms, iframes, and <video>/<audio> captions
• Simple inline contrast checks
• DOCX/PPTX embedded image descriptions via Office XML
• PDF metadata/tagging preflight (/StructTreeRoot, /Lang, /Title)
• Manual-review flags for reading order, alt-text quality, captions/transcripts, color meaning, and full PDF/UA validation

What it exports

Format	What it's for
summary	Quick terminal output for CI
markdown	Reviewable per-file report
json	Structured data for dashboards / tooling
csv	One row per finding with a status column — a remediation tracker spreadsheet
pr-comment	Sticky pull-request comment (idempotent marker, top findings)
evidence-pack	Client-ready 508 Evidence Pack — methodology, files reviewed, findings, manual checks, alt-text register, remediation status, remaining risks, delivery recommendation, reviewer sign-off

Preview

The live demo also includes an interactive sample preflight (a fake NIH-webinar-promo-package.zip with realistic mixed-format issues) and a 508 Evidence Pack preview you can download.

Quick start

npm install
npm run build
npm run scan:samples            # generate a Markdown report
npm run evidence:samples        # generate a 508 Evidence Pack
npm run dev                     # start the browser app

CLI usage

# Print a terminal summary
accessready scan ./public

# Markdown / JSON / CSV report
accessready scan ./public --format markdown --out report.md
accessready scan ./public --format json     --out report.json
accessready scan ./public --format csv      --out remediation-log.csv

# Client-ready 508 Evidence Pack
accessready scan ./deliverable --format evidence-pack \
  --project-name "NIH webinar promo package" \
  --out AccessReady-evidence-pack.md

# Sticky pull-request comment summary
accessready scan ./public --format pr-comment --out comment.md

# Fail CI on high-severity findings
accessready scan ./content --fail-on high

# Ignore generated/vendor folders
accessready scan ./public --ignore "**/vendor/**" --ignore "**/.next/**"

GitHub Action

Copy .github/workflows/accessready.yml to gate releases, or .github/workflows/accessready-pr-comment.yml to post a self-updating preflight comment on every pull request.

name: AccessReady 508 Preflight
on: [pull_request, push]
jobs:
  accessready:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v6
        with: { node-version: 20, cache: npm }
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build
      - run: npm run accessready -- scan ./public ./docs --format evidence-pack --out AccessReady-evidence-pack.md --fail-on high
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v7
        if: always()
        with:
          name: accessready-evidence-pack
          path: AccessReady-evidence-pack.md

Sample reports

• samples/generated-accessready-report.md — Markdown report from npm run scan:samples
• samples/sample-evidence-pack.md — full 508 Evidence Pack from npm run evidence:samples

Roadmap

Now

• HTML / Markdown scanning
• DOCX / PPTX preflight checks
• PDF metadata / tagging checks
• Markdown / JSON / CSV reports
• 508 Evidence Pack export
• Interactive browser demo with status tracking

Next

• Drag-and-drop folder scanning
• Better PDF structure analysis
• Alt text register builder
• Project-level remediation tracker
• GitHub Action PR comments ✅ shipped

Future

• Browser extension
• Google Docs / Drive workflow
• Microsoft Office add-in
• AI-assisted alt-text drafts with human approval
• Client portal
• ACR / VPAT evidence support (not a replacement)

Grounded in real accessibility workflows

• Supports automated, manual, and hybrid review workflows
• Helps document methodology and findings — Section508.gov's Essential Elements of an Accessibility Test Report emphasizes recording method, tools, defects, and replication detail
• Encourages human review for subjective checks
• Designed around common 508 / WCAG issue patterns
• Does not replace expert audit, PDF remediation, VPAT / ACR creation, or legal review

Reference

• Section508.gov — Testing Overview
• Section508.gov — Essential Elements of an Accessibility Test Report
• Section508.gov — ACR overview
• ADA Title II Web Rule overview

Contributing

Pull requests welcome. Please:

1. npm install && npm run build && npm test
2. Keep the code readable — small files, clear names, no clever metaprogramming
3. Preserve the positioning: AccessReady is a preflight + evidence tool, never a "guaranteed compliance" tool

See docs/CONTRIBUTING.md for more detail.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.