Frequently Asked Questions

Concepts

What is the difference between a Git project and a Gitless project?

Developer Hub organizes your results differently depending on whether your tests use Git:

• A Git project associates accessibility results with branches and commits, allowing you to track issues back to specific code changes.
• A Gitless project organizes results as a series of test runs ordered by timestamp, without any Git data.
• Git data is available when using Axe Watcher, the axe CLI, or the axe DevTools for Web APIs (which upload results via the CLI). Mobile projects are always Gitless.

See Understand Your Results and the glossary entries for Git and Gitless for more details.

What is the a11y threshold and how do I configure it?

The a11y threshold reflects your organization's tolerance for accessibility issues and determines what counts as a failure in your CI/CD pipeline:

• It is computed from two criteria: whether to count all issues or only new issues, and which impact levels to include (Critical is always included).
• Only project admins can configure the threshold.

See Change the A11y Threshold for full details.

What do the impact levels (Critical, Serious, Moderate, Minor) mean?

Every accessibility violation is assigned one of four impact levels, from most to least severe:

• Critical: Users with disabilities are completely blocked from accessing or interacting with a feature.
• Serious: Users with disabilities face significant barriers when interacting with the site.
• Moderate: Some barriers exist, but basic content is still accessible.
• Minor: Less severe issues that still require resolution for full compliance.

See the Glossary for detailed definitions.

Comparisons

Developer Hub provides two types of comparisons for Git projects. Cross-branch comparisons appear in the Branches view, where each branch is compared to the latest pipeline run on the default branch (this shows what would change if you merged right now). Within-branch comparisons appear on the Commits view, where each commit is compared to the previous scanned commit on the same branch (this tells you what a specific commit introduced or fixed). See Understand Your Results for the full picture.

How do I determine what is changing from release to release?

The Branches view in a Git project lets you track accessibility changes across releases using a cross-branch comparison:

• Each branch's latest scanned commit is compared against the latest pipeline run on your default branch.
• The comparison shows the total number of issues, new issues introduced, issues resolved, and any changes in the number of page states scanned.

To see what changed in individual commits within a branch, see How do I see what has changed from commit to commit within a branch?

How can I determine what the impact will be of a pull request?

Run your test suite on the pull request branch so that results appear in Axe Developer Hub:

• On the Branches view, each non-default branch displays a cross-branch comparison to the default branch, showing new issues introduced, issues resolved, and the total difference.
• If you use the GitHub Action, it can automatically post a comment on the PR with a summary and a link to the full results.

To drill into what each commit on the branch changed, see How do I see what has changed from commit to commit within a branch?

How do I see what has changed from commit to commit within a branch?

From the Branches view, click on View Commits on any branch to see its individual scanned commits. Unlike the cross-branch comparisons on the Branches view, the Commits view uses within-branch comparisons:

• Each commit is compared to the previous scanned commit on that branch, showing new issues, resolved issues, and changes in page states.
• Only commits where the test suite was run will appear.

To see how the branch as a whole compares to the default branch, see How do I compare a branch with the latest CI/CD run on the default branch?

How do I compare a branch with the latest CI/CD run on the default branch?

The Branches view automatically performs a cross-branch comparison for each non-default branch against the default branch's latest pipeline run:

• This requires a project admin to have configured Axe Watcher to run on the default branch as a pipeline run.
• The comparison shows total issues, new issues, resolved issues, and page state differences.

To see what changed in individual commits within that branch, see How do I see what has changed from commit to commit within a branch?

CI/CD

How do I make sure no new accessibility issues are merged into my code?

Integrate Axe Developer Hub into your CI/CD pipeline so that accessibility checks run automatically on every commit or pull request:

• If you use GitHub, the Axe Developer Hub GitHub Action can block PRs that introduce accessibility errors.
• For other platforms like GitLab or Bitbucket, use the REST Service API to query results and fail your pipeline when issues are detected.
• You can fine-tune what counts as a failure by configuring the a11y threshold.

How do I integrate Axe Developer Hub with my CI/CD pipeline if I don't use GitHub?

You can use the REST Service API to integrate with any CI/CD platform:

• The REST Service API lets you query Axe Developer Hub for results after your test suite runs.
• The API returns the issue count, new violations, resolved violations, and a link to the full results in Developer Hub.
• You can use this response to pass or fail your pipeline in GitLab, Bitbucket, Jenkins, or any other platform.

Project Management

How do I view other team members' accessibility scans on a project?

All project members can view all results within a shared project once they've been added:

• Add team members through the Members settings page.
• On Git projects, the Branches view displays results grouped by API key, so you can see who ran each scan.

For details on roles and permissions, see Set Up Projects for Team Use.

How do I export my accessibility results?

Developer Hub offers several ways to export your data:

• From the issue summary view, click the Export Issues button to download results as CSV or JSON.
• For programmatic access, use the REST Service API to query results for a specific commit and project.

See Get Results Programmatically for more options.