Accessibility alt text bot

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

Note 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
    if: ${{ github.event.issue || github.event.pull_request || github.event.discussion }}
    steps:
      - name: Get action 'github/accessibility-alt-text-bot'
        uses: github/[email protected] # Set to latest