Add --accessible flag for screen reader support by taylorarndt · Pull Request #16 · microsoft/agentrc

taylorarndt · 2026-02-23T00:33:12Z

Why

I am a blind developer. When I run the Primer TUI with a screen reader, every box-drawing border character gets read aloud individually: "box drawing light arc down and right, box drawing light horizontal, box drawing light horizontal..." over and over. The block-art ASCII banner is even worse. Unicode symbols like checkmarks and bullets also get verbose announcements instead of useful information.

This makes the TUI unusable with a screen reader.

What this does

Adds a --accessible flag that strips out all the visual decoration and replaces it with plain text that screen readers can actually read.

Borders: Removed when --accessible is on. No more box-drawing characters.

Banner: The block-art "PRIMER" banner becomes the word "PRIMER" in plain text.

Symbols: Unicode gets replaced with text:

✓ becomes PASS or OK
✗ becomes FAIL
◉ becomes [x]
○ becomes [ ]
❯ becomes >
→ becomes -

Ink integration: Passes isScreenReaderEnabled: true to Ink's render() so the framework itself also optimizes output.

Usage

# Global flag works with any subcommand
primer --accessible tui
primer --accessible batch

# Or set once via environment variable
export INK_SCREEN_READER=true
primer tui

What a screen reader hears now

Before:

box drawing light arc down and right, box drawing light horizontal, box drawing light horizontal, box drawing light horizontal, box drawing light arc down and left, full block, full block, full block...

After:

PRIMER. Prime your repo for AI. Repo: my-project. Status: ready. Keys: A Analyze, G Generate, E Eval, B Batch, Q Quit.

Files changed

src/cli.ts — global --accessible option
src/commands/tui.tsx — reads flag, passes to render and component
src/commands/batch.tsx — same
src/ui/AnimatedBanner.tsx — plain text banner in accessible mode
src/ui/tui.tsx — conditional borders and text symbols
src/ui/BatchTui.tsx — conditional borders and text symbols for all lists

Test plan

primer --accessible tui — no box-drawing characters in output
primer --accessible batch — no Unicode symbols in lists
INK_SCREEN_READER=true primer tui — same behavior via env var
primer tui without flag — normal visual output unchanged
Test with a screen reader (VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

When enabled (via --accessible flag or INK_SCREEN_READER=true env var), the TUI removes box-drawing border characters, replaces the block-art banner with plain text, and substitutes Unicode symbols with text equivalents (e.g. checkmark -> PASS, bullet -> [x]). This prevents screen readers from reading every border character aloud as "box drawing light arc down and right" etc. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds an opt-in accessibility mode for Primer’s Ink-based TUIs to improve screen reader output by removing box-drawing borders, replacing banner art, and substituting certain Unicode symbols with text.

Changes:

Introduces a global --accessible CLI flag and reads INK_SCREEN_READER=true as an alternative.
Updates tui and batch commands to pass accessibility settings into Ink render() and the UI components.
Adjusts TUI components to remove borders and replace some Unicode glyphs with text when accessible is enabled.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
`src/cli.ts`	Adds global `--accessible` option (and touches CLI version line).
`src/commands/tui.tsx`	Derives `accessible` and passes it to Ink render + `PrimerTui`.
`src/commands/batch.tsx`	Derives `accessible` and passes it to Ink render + `BatchTui`.
`src/ui/AnimatedBanner.tsx`	Makes `StaticBanner` render plain “PRIMER” text when accessible.
`src/ui/tui.tsx`	Plumbs `accessible` through the main TUI and adjusts borders/verdict glyphs.
`src/ui/BatchTui.tsx`	Adds `accessible` prop and replaces some list glyphs + borders accordingly.

Copilot · 2026-02-23T00:40:09Z

src/commands/batch.tsx

+  const accessible = cmd.parent?.opts().accessible || process.env.INK_SCREEN_READER === "true";
  const { waitUntilExit } = render(
-    <BatchTui token={token} outputPath={options.output} />
+    <BatchTui token={token} outputPath={options.output} accessible={accessible} />,
+    { isScreenReaderEnabled: accessible }


batchCommand dereferences cmd.parent without guarding cmd itself. If the Command instance is not passed into the action handler (depending on Commander configuration), this will crash primer batch at startup. Consider making cmd optional (cmd?.parent?.opts()) and/or enabling passCommandToAction(true) when registering commands.

Copilot · 2026-02-23T00:40:10Z

src/cli.ts

+    .version("0.1.0")
+    .option("--accessible", "Enable screen reader friendly output (removes box-drawing characters, replaces Unicode symbols with text)");


The CLI version is hardcoded as 0.1.0, but package.json is 1.0.0. This can cause confusing/mismatched primer --version output. Consider sourcing the version from package.json (or keeping these in sync).

Copilot · 2026-02-23T00:40:10Z

src/cli.ts

    .description("Prime repositories for AI-assisted development")
-    .version("0.1.0");
+    .version("0.1.0")
+    .option("--accessible", "Enable screen reader friendly output (removes box-drawing characters, replaces Unicode symbols with text)");


--accessible is added only on the root command. With Commander’s default parsing rules, primer tui --accessible will be treated as an unknown option on the tui subcommand (users must write primer --accessible tui). If you want it to behave like a true global flag regardless of position, consider also adding the option to subcommands (or enabling positional/pass-through options).

Copilot · 2026-02-23T00:40:10Z

src/ui/BatchTui.tsx

-                  <Text color={repo.hasInstructions ? "green" : "red"}>{repo.hasInstructions ? "✓" : "✗"} </Text>
+                  <Text color={isCursor ? "cyan" : undefined}>{isCursor ? (accessible ? "> " : "❯ ") : "  "}</Text>
+                  <Text color={isSelected ? "green" : "gray"}>{isSelected ? (accessible ? "[x]" : "◉") : (accessible ? "[ ]" : "○")} </Text>
+                  <Text color={repo.hasInstructions ? "green" : "red"}>{repo.hasInstructions ? (accessible ? "HAS" : "✓") : (accessible ? "NEEDS" : "✗")} </Text>


In accessible mode, the repo status indicator uses very terse labels (HAS / NEEDS). For screen reader output this can be ambiguous (has/needs what?). Consider using more explicit text like HAS_INSTRUCTIONS / NEEDS_INSTRUCTIONS (or similar) so the meaning is clear when read aloud.

Suggested change

<Text color={repo.hasInstructions ? "green" : "red"}>{repo.hasInstructions ? (accessible ? "HAS" : "✓") : (accessible ? "NEEDS" : "✗")} </Text>

<Text color={repo.hasInstructions ? "green" : "red"}>{repo.hasInstructions ? (accessible ? "HAS_INSTRUCTIONS" : "✓") : (accessible ? "NEEDS_INSTRUCTIONS" : "✗")} </Text>

Copilot · 2026-02-23T00:40:10Z

src/ui/tui.tsx

          {evalResults.map((r) => (
            <Text key={r.id} color={r.verdict === "pass" ? "green" : r.verdict === "fail" ? "red" : "yellow"}>
-              {r.verdict === "pass" ? "✓" : r.verdict === "fail" ? "✗" : "?"} {r.id}: {r.verdict} (score: {r.score})
+              {r.verdict === "pass" ? (accessible ? "PASS" : "✓") : r.verdict === "fail" ? (accessible ? "FAIL" : "✗") : "?"} {r.id}: {r.verdict} (score: {r.score})


In accessible mode, the verdict line prints both the text label and the verdict value (e.g., PASS <id>: pass ... / FAIL <id>: fail ...), which is redundant when read aloud. Consider outputting a single normalized label (e.g., Verdict: PASS) or omitting r.verdict when the accessible label is used.

Suggested change

{r.verdict === "pass" ? (accessible ? "PASS" : "✓") : r.verdict === "fail" ? (accessible ? "FAIL" : "✗") : "?"} {r.id}: {r.verdict} (score: {r.score})

{accessible

? `Verdict: ${r.verdict === "pass" ? "PASS" : r.verdict === "fail" ? "FAIL" : "UNKNOWN"} ${r.id} (score: ${r.score})`

: `${r.verdict === "pass" ? "✓" : r.verdict === "fail" ? "✗" : "?"} ${r.id}: ${r.verdict} (score: ${r.score})`}

Copilot · 2026-02-23T00:40:11Z

src/commands/tui.tsx

+  const accessible = cmd.parent?.opts().accessible || process.env.INK_SCREEN_READER === "true";
+  const { waitUntilExit } = render(
+    <PrimerTui repoPath={repoPath} skipAnimation={skipAnimation || accessible} accessible={accessible} />,
+    { isScreenReaderEnabled: accessible }


tuiCommand assumes Commander passes a cmd argument, but cmd is dereferenced unguarded (cmd.parent...). If Commander doesn’t pass the Command instance (depending on configuration), this will throw at runtime and break primer tui. Make cmd optional (use cmd?.parent?.opts()) and/or enable passCommandToAction(true) when wiring commands so the Command instance is reliably available.

chore: update dependencies across root and vscode-extension

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 23, 2026 00:33

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of taylorarndt February 23, 2026 00:33 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Feb 23, 2026

View reviewed changes

digitarald added a commit that referenced this pull request Feb 24, 2026

Merge pull request #16 from digitarald:chore/update-dependencies

9d9413f

chore: update dependencies across root and vscode-extension

danielmeppiel mentioned this pull request Feb 26, 2026

Scaffold individual primitives as reusable packages with apm init --type microsoft/apm#60

Open

8 tasks

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Add --accessible flag for screen reader support#16

Add --accessible flag for screen reader support#16
taylorarndt wants to merge 1 commit intomicrosoft:mainfrom
taylorarndt:feature/screen-reader-accessibility

taylorarndt commented Feb 23, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

Copilot AI left a comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

2 participants

		.version("0.1.0")
		.option("--accessible", "Enable screen reader friendly output (removes box-drawing characters, replaces Unicode symbols with text)");

	<Text color={repo.hasInstructions ? "green" : "red"}>{repo.hasInstructions ? (accessible ? "HAS" : "✓") : (accessible ? "NEEDS" : "✗")} </Text>
	<Text color={repo.hasInstructions ? "green" : "red"}>{repo.hasInstructions ? (accessible ? "HAS_INSTRUCTIONS" : "✓") : (accessible ? "NEEDS_INSTRUCTIONS" : "✗")} </Text>

Conversation

taylorarndt commented Feb 23, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Why

What this does

Usage

What a screen reader hears now

Files changed

Test plan

Uh oh!

Copilot AI left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Pull request overview

Reviewed changes

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI Feb 23, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

2 participants

taylorarndt commented Feb 23, 2026 •

edited

Loading