How to Set Up Automated Accessibility Testing in GitHub Actions (Copy-Paste Config)

Originally published at A11yFix. Last month I inherited a project where accessibility was "on the roadmap." Translation: nobody had touched it. Rather than rely on manual audits that happen once a quarter (if you're lucky), I set up automated accessibility testing that runs on every pull request. It took about 20 minutes, and now no PR merges if it introduces accessibility violations. Here's exactly how to do it. Why axe-core + Playwright? There are plenty of accessibility testing tools out there, but this combination hits a sweet spot: axe-core is the industry standard engine behind most accessibility tools. It catches real WCAG violations, not theoretical ones. Playwright gives you a real browser environment, so you're testing what users actually see -- not just static HTML. Both are free and open source. Together they catch around 30-40% of WCAG 2.1 issues automatically. That won't replace manual testing, but it prevents regressions and catches the low-hanging fruit before a human e