feat(aria-actions): add aria-actions to allowed ARIA attributes by chutchins25 · Pull Request #5200 · dequelabs/axe-core

chutchins25 · 2026-07-01T17:20:23Z

Summary

Adds aria-actions to axe-core's known ARIA attributes so it is recognized as valid, allowed, and prohibited on the roles the spec prohibits it on — and re-enables the APG tabs-actions example that had been disabled for lack of aria-actions support.

Per the spec draft, aria-actions:

Value type: ID reference list → idrefs
Global: yes (like aria-describedby)
Empty allowed: yes — the spec permits aria-actions="" (the deferred-DOM case) → allowEmpty: true
Prohibited roles: the name-prohibited roles the spec also prohibits it on (all axe prohibitedAttrs roles except none/presentation, which the spec still permits)
ElementInternals reflection: ariaActionsElements

Accessibility-supported rationale

Following the Impact on ARIA decision framework:

Supported by all platforms? No — shipped in WebKit and Firefox; Chromium pending.
Does its use negatively impact accessibility? No — unsupported browsers simply ignore the attribute (progressive enhancement), and the spec hard-guards exposure. → allow.

Note for reviewers: the ARIA spec change is still PR #1805, not yet merged — this aligns to the two engines shipping ahead of spec approval. We can patch the config later in the unlikely event the spec shifts.

Changes

Attribute recognition — lib/standards/aria-attrs.js: add the aria-actions entry (idrefs, global, allowEmpty).

Prohibited-on-role — lib/standards/aria-roles.js: add aria-actions to prohibitedAttrs for caption, code, deletion, emphasis, insertion, mark, paragraph, strong, subscript, superscript, suggestion. Per w3c/aria#1805 these roles prohibit it; none/presentation do not, so they are left unchanged.

APG test re-enable (Closes #4584) — bump aria-practices to latest main (the tabs-actions page did not exist at the previously pinned commit) and remove it from skippedPages. axe recognizes the attribute but not the authoring pattern, so aria-required-children (tabs-actions) and nested-interactive (listbox-actions) are disabled per-page pending #5215.

Review feedback — update the stale wai-aria-1.1 Source: comment to the unversioned WAI-ARIA URL; add an aria-actions="" pass case exercising allowEmpty.

Testing

get-global-aria-attrs, aria-prohibited-attr (check + virtual-rule), aria-valid-attr, aria-allowed-attr, aria-valid-attr-value unit + integration tests ✓
Full APG suite green (76 passing) ✓
npm run build clean; no auto-generated committed files change

Follow-ups

Support the aria-actions pattern in aria-required-children and nested-interactive #5215 — teach aria-required-children / nested-interactive about the aria-actions pattern, then remove the per-page disables in apg.spec.js

Closes #5199
Closes #4584

Register aria-actions as a global idrefs attribute (reflected via ariaActionsElements) so aria-valid-attr and aria-allowed-attr don't raise false positives on valid usage. Shipped in WebKit and Firefox; Chromium pending. Closes issue #5199

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds support for the emerging aria-actions attribute to axe-core’s ARIA standards data so it’s treated as a valid, global ARIA attribute and does not trigger aria-valid-attr / aria-allowed-attr false positives.

Changes:

Add aria-actions to the known ARIA attributes registry (type idrefs, global, allow-empty).
Update the global ARIA attributes unit test expectation to include aria-actions.
Extend aria-valid-attr and aria-allowed-attr integration fixtures to include passing aria-actions usage.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

File	Description
lib/standards/aria-attrs.js	Registers `aria-actions` as a known global ARIA attribute with metadata (type/prop/allowEmpty).
test/commons/standards/get-global-aria-attrs.js	Updates the asserted global attribute list to include `aria-actions`.
test/integration/rules/aria-allowed-attr/passes.html	Adds `aria-actions` to passing fixtures across global-attr pass blocks.
test/integration/rules/aria-valid-attr/aria-valid-attr.{html,json}	Adds a pass case for `aria-actions` so it’s recognized as valid.

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chutchins25 · 2026-07-16T22:46:36Z

+  'aria-actions': {
+    type: 'idrefs',
+    prop: 'ariaActionsElements',
+    allowEmpty: true,
+    global: true


Done — added an aria-actions="" pass case (#pass193) to the aria-valid-attr-value integration fixture.

straker · 2026-07-14T21:08:16Z

As part of this pr, we should look at reenabling the aria-practices tests we had to disable. See #4584

WilcoFiers · 2026-07-15T10:05:00Z

This seems fine to me. I think we should just merge this instead of disabling an ARIA practice test.

…PG test Prohibit aria-actions on the 11 name-prohibited roles per w3c/aria#1805, add an allowEmpty pass case, and bump aria-practices to re-enable the tabs-actions APG example. aria-required-children / nested-interactive don't yet support the aria-actions pattern, so they're disabled per-page pending #5215. Closes #4584

chutchins25 · 2026-07-16T22:46:44Z

@straker done in this PR. I bumped aria-practices to latest main (the tabs-actions page didn't exist at the previously pinned commit) and removed it from skippedPages.

One caveat worth flagging: recognizing the attribute doesn't make axe support the full authoring pattern. aria-required-children (tabs-actions) and nested-interactive (listbox-actions) still flag the action controls associated via aria-actions, so those two rules are disabled per-page in apg.spec.js for now. Real pattern support is tracked in #5215.

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. See [commit-and-tag-version](https://github.com/absolute-version/commit-and-tag-version) for commit guidelines. ## [4.13.0](v4.12.1...v4.13.0) (2026-08-05) ### Features - **aria-actions:** add aria-actions to allowed ARIA attributes ([#5200](#5200)) ([029655d](029655d)), closes [#4584](#4584) [#5199](#5199), references [#5215](#5215) [#5215](#5215) - **aria-allowed-attr:** flag deprecated ARIA attributes as needs-review ([#5246](#5246)) ([518f3cc](518f3cc)), closes [#3341](#3341) - **aria-prohibited-attr:** allow many elements to be named and disallow label and body from being named ([#5259](#5259)) ([d8b1ea5](d8b1ea5)) - **aria-roles:** add sectionheader and sectionfooter roles ([#5238](#5238)) ([c36c109](c36c109)), closes [#4734](#4734), references [#4734](#4734) - **aria/get-aria-value:** new function to get aria values of a node ([#5109](#5109)) ([a7d8f3e](a7d8f3e)), references [#5042](#5042) - **aria/has-attr-value:** new function to check if node has aria value ([#5136](#5136)) ([61f2624](61f2624)), references [#5109](#5109) - **aria:** support role=image as equivalent to role=img ([#5248](#5248)) ([5aa8aaf](5aa8aaf)), closes [#4656](#4656), references [#5272](#5272) - **checks/aria:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5172](#5172)) ([9b7f754](9b7f754)) - **checks/label:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5170](#5170)) ([21c5f8b](21c5f8b)) - **checks/navigation:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5167](#5167)) ([2c3a98f](2c3a98f)) - **commons/aria:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5171](#5171)) ([31f09e7](31f09e7)) - **commons/dom:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5163](#5163)) ([f0a12cf](f0a12cf)) - **commons/forms:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5165](#5165)) ([27a4686](27a4686)) - **commons/matches/fromPrimative:** deprecate in favor of correct spelling ([#5270](#5270)) ([31cfb2e](31cfb2e)) - **commons/text:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5169](#5169)) ([e841a33](e841a33)) - **commons/text:** support form-associated labels via element internals ([#5182](#5182)) ([57cfe0a](57cfe0a)), closes [#5045](#5045), references [#5170](#5170) [#5039](#5039) [#5151](#5151) [#5039](#5039) - **dom/getResolvedRefs:** new function to get the resolved virtual nodes of idrefs ([#5151](#5151)) ([489cdea](489cdea)), references [#5109](#5109) - **element-internals:** enable ElementInternals by default ([#5284](#5284)) ([2740d42](2740d42)), closes [#5277](#5277) - **i18n:** Add Swedish locale ([#5190](#5190)) ([dcd13f2](dcd13f2)), references [#5189](#5189) - **matches:** add inSectioningContent, hasChild, and isSummaryForDetails matches ([#5262](#5262)) ([c47cdcd](c47cdcd)) - **rules:** support ARIA element internals properties ([#5168](#5168)) ([065baf7](065baf7)) - **standards/ariaAttrs:** add caseInsensitive property for attributes ([#5224](#5224)) ([bcd791c](bcd791c)) ### Bug Fixes - **aria-allowed-role:** allow roles on a non-details summary ([#5242](#5242)) ([3bd9875](3bd9875)), closes [#3911](#3911), references [#3443](#3443) [#3911](#3911) - **aria-allowed-role:** restrict figure roles with child figcaption ([#5240](#5240)) ([178a635](178a635)), closes [#3443](#3443) - **aria-prohibited-attr:** visible aria-labelledby requires review only ([#5285](#5285)) ([fd6fa9f](fd6fa9f)) - **axe.d.ts:** make enabled property of RuleMetadata optional ([#5129](#5129)) ([90fce18](90fce18)) - **color-contrast:** fix various stacking context bugs ([#5214](#5214)) ([d5e5b04](d5e5b04)), references [#8](#8) [#5213](#5213) - **gather-internals:** handle non-HTMLElement nodes ([#5161](#5161)) ([06e84c3](06e84c3)) - **get-selector:** escape control characters in attribute selectors ([#5273](#5273)) ([4b60ac5](4b60ac5)), closes [#5204](#5204) [#5204](#5204) - **image-alt:** allow whitespace alt on presentational images ([#5218](#5218)) ([c5dd0ef](c5dd0ef)), closes [#5216](#5216) - **landmark-unique:** exclude section/form with non-landmark roles from landmark match ([#5085](#5085)) ([c5fd013](c5fd013)), closes [#4722](#4722) [#5064](#5064) - name the image role in role-img-alt and svg-img-alt metadata ([#5279](#5279)) ([995a269](995a269)), closes [#5272](#5272), references [#5248](#5248) [#5248](#5248) - **standards:** update aria-errormessage and aria-details to be idrefs ([#5157](#5157)) ([fb94f8a](fb94f8a)) This PR was opened by a robot 🤖 🎉

chutchins25 requested a review from Copilot July 1, 2026 17:45

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chutchins25 mentioned this pull request Jul 16, 2026

Support the aria-actions pattern in aria-required-children and nested-interactive #5215

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chutchins25 marked this pull request as ready for review July 16, 2026 22:51

chutchins25 requested a review from a team as a code owner July 16, 2026 22:51

WilcoFiers approved these changes Jul 17, 2026

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chutchins25 self-assigned this Jul 17, 2026

chutchins25 merged commit 029655d into develop Jul 17, 2026
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chutchins25 deleted the chut/5199-aria-actions branch July 17, 2026 13:50

attest-team-ci mentioned this pull request Aug 5, 2026

chore(release): v4.13.0 #5288

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feat(aria-actions): add aria-actions to allowed ARIA attributes - #5200

feat(aria-actions): add aria-actions to allowed ARIA attributes#5200
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Summary

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