feat: add includeIncomplete=false option to exclude axe-core incomplete results#808
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…ults Axe-core's "incomplete" results are items it couldn't automatically verify, not actual accessibility violations. On pages with rich content (math symbols, pseudo-elements, SVG foreignObject, overlapping backgrounds), these produce hundreds of false positives with no CSS fix since the contrast ratios are correct — axe just can't confirm them programmatically. This adds a boolean `includeIncomplete` option (default `true` for backward compatibility). When set to `false`, the axe runner only returns `result.violations`, excluding `result.incomplete`. - Available via JS API (`includeIncomplete: false`) and CLI (`--no-include-incomplete`) - Default `true` preserves existing behavior (non-breaking change) - Includes unit tests for all three states (true, false, unset) - Updates README documentation Relates to pa11y#442 and pa11y/pa11y-ci#124
includeIncomplete=false option to exclude axe-core incomplete results
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Summary
Add a boolean
includeIncompleteoption (defaulttrue) that cleanly excludes axe-core's "incomplete" (needs-review) results without affecting violation reporting.Motivation
#707 requested filtering out incomplete results and was closed as resolved by #685 (
levelCapWhenNeedsReview). The workaround caps incomplete items to a lower severity and then excludes that level:{ "levelCapWhenNeedsReview": "warning", "includeWarnings": false }This has a real trade-off: it also suppresses genuine violation warnings. For example,
heading-order(skipped heading levels like h1 → h3) reportsmoderateimpact, which pa11y maps towarning. The workaround silently drops it along with the incomplete items.includeIncomplete: falsesolves this precisely — it excludes only incomplete results while preserving all violation severities.The false-positive problem
On pages with rich content (math symbols, pseudo-elements, SVG foreignObject, overlapping backgrounds), axe-core's incomplete results produce hundreds of non-actionable items (e.g.
nonBmp,bgOverlap,pseudoContent,shortTextContent). These aren't violations — axe just can't confirm them programmatically.Relates to #707, #442, #623, #633, #697, and pa11y/pa11y-ci#124.