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Accessibility-alt-text-bot

This action reminds users to add a meaningful alternative text to their images. Alternative text helps users who rely on tools like screen readers, and lowers accessibility barriers.

The action can check:

  • Issue comments
  • Issue descriptions
  • Pull Request comments
  • Pull Request descriptions
  • Discussion comments
  • Discussion descriptions

To learn how to write good alternative text, read Alternative text for images on Primer.

Why you may need this action

Images on GitHub default to using the filename as alt text. This action flags when the alt text has not been updated from the default:

Screenshot of an automated actions comment on a GitHub issue that says, 'Uh oh! @monalisa, the image you shared is missing helpful alt text...' and contains instructions for setting alt text

Tip

Normally, setting alt="" marks images as decorative. But GitHub renders all images as a link. To avoid rendering links with no names, we recommend always setting alt text on images in GitHub.

How to add this action to your repo

Copy this workflow into any repo you want the accessibility-alt-text-bot to run in:

name: Accessibility-alt-text-bot
on: 
  issues:
    types: [opened, edited]
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, edited]
  issue_comment:
    types: [created, edited]
  discussion:
    types: [created, edited]
  discussion_comment:
    types: [created, edited]

permissions:
  issues: write
  pull-requests: write
  discussions: write
  
jobs:
  accessibility_alt_text_bot:
    name: Check alt text is set on issue or pull requests
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Get action 'github/accessibility-alt-text-bot'
        uses: github/accessibility-alt-text-bot@v1.4.0 # Set to latest

Pin the action's version for stability

We recommend you pin the action to a specific version. This makes sure you stay on a stable version of this action.

       uses: github/accessibility-alt-text-bot@v1.4.0

Replace the ref value with any commit hash.

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT open source license. Please read the MIT license file for the full terms.

Maintainers

See CODEOWNERS.

Support

TODO: Be explicit about support expectations.

Acknowledgement

Please read our Contributing Guide for more information.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Katie Foster
Katie Foster

🤔 ️️️️♿️
Kendall Gassner
Kendall Gassner

💻 ️️️️♿️ 📖 🚇
Kate Higa
Kate Higa

💻 ️️️️♿️ 📖 🚇
HonkingGoose
HonkingGoose

📖
JoshuaKGoldberg
JoshuaKGoldberg

💻

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!