What accessibility checks belong in CI for headless commerce?
CI should run component checks plus browser tests for navigation, product selection, cart, forms, dialogs, and errors. Fail builds on newly introduced critical rules, but keep a reviewed baseline for known issues so noise does not disable the gate. Add manual testing before major releases because automation cannot judge every focus, announcement, and task-completion problem.
Build a useful gate
Test representative routes with stable fixtures, save the exact rule and selector, and fail only on regressions the team can act on. Flaky tests and unexplained scores teach developers to ignore accessibility.
Continue after deployment
Production differs through content, flags, apps, and live data. Rescan after release, compare with CI, and open a dated issue when a production-only defect appears. Close it only after a live passing retest.
Frequently asked questions
What belongs in an accessibility CI check for headless commerce?
Automated scans against the rendered frontend routes, component-level tests in the design system pipeline, and checks that the content API is not stripping the attributes components need, such as alt text fields and heading order data. Headless splits the failure points; CI has to cover both halves.
Why do headless builds create new accessibility failures?
Because responsibilities split: the CMS owns content structure, the frontend owns presentation, and neither sees the whole page the user gets. Heading hierarchies, landmark order, and focus behavior live in the seam between the two, which is exactly where unmonitored failures breed.
What can CI not catch in a headless stack?
Keyboard flow across composed components, screen reader announcements for dynamic regions, and anything involving real content volume. CI should gate the mechanical failures so human testing time goes to the interaction failures only people can find.
How strict should CI gates be?
Block merges on critical, well-defined violations with low false-positive rates; warn on the rest. Gates that cry wolf get bypassed, and a bypassed gate is worse than a warning, because it teaches the team the pipeline is decorative.