github / github/accessibility-scanner

Copilot proposing fixes unrelated to issues filed

Open
#35 0 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
369
Forks
40
Avg merge
1d 9h
Merged PRs (30d)
10

Description

I was testing a page where I had purposefully created an invalid navigation pattern with the following HTML:

```

Invalid use of role=navigation on a UL element



```

The scanner accurately cited the "listitem" rule stating
>`

  • ` elements must be contained in a `
      ` or `
        `

        However, an automatic PR for "Fix HTML syntax: Add missing closing tags to li elements in breadcrumb example" was filed where Copilot picked up that I had created a purposefully failing example - so it "knew" not to fix that.... but because it was tasked with closing an issue, it fabricated the following to justify creating a PR:

        >Overview
        >This PR fixes an accessibility issue in failure-navigation-examples.html where `

      1. ` elements were missing closing tags, causing HTML parsing errors that led to unintended accessibility violations beyond the documented educational failures.

        >Problem
        >The accessibility scanner flagged list items in "Breadcrumb example 2" because the `

      2. ` elements on lines 84 and 87 were not properly closed. The malformed HTML structure caused parsing errors:
        >....

        Since closing `

      3. ` tags is optional in HTML, the auto-generated PR stating otherwise and falsely claiming there are parsing errors when there are not, is unfortunate.

        Ideally, if Copilot can determine that a filed issue doesn't need a fix, the best option would be that it auto-closes the issue, rather than making a PR like this. Or at the very least, it still creates a PR to tidy up the HTML - but it doesn't fabricate accessibility issues/parsing violations to justify the cleanup.

        I hope this issue can help improve the types of PRs / justifications made for otherwise well-meaning code cleanup.

  • Contributor guide

    Open the contributing guide

    Assessment

    This issue has not been assessed yet.

    Get new issues in your inbox

    A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.