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EnglishWhere to Find Pa11y's Open Source Projects and How to Contribute
Updated
Pa11y publishes its tools as free and open source projects, and the site provides two direct entry points: a "View all of our open source projects" link for browsing the full set, and a contributors guide for anyone who wants to help. If you already know which tool you need, the four named projects below are the fastest route; if you want to contribute, start with the contributors guide rather than picking a repository at random.
The four Pa11y tools
The site describes four projects, each aimed at a different testing situation:
| Tool | What it is | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Pa11y | A command-line interface that loads web pages and highlights accessibility issues | One-off tests against a single web page |
| Pa11y Dashboard | A web dashboard that automatically tests pages daily, with graphs tracking improvements and regressions over time | Non-developers who want to see how sites perform |
| Pa11y Webservice | The JSON-based webservice that backs Pa11y Dashboard | Building your own dashboard-like front end, or repurposing the data |
| Pa11y CI | A command-line tool that iterates over a list of web pages and highlights accessibility issues | Use in CI |
The distinction that matters most when choosing: Pa11y is for a single page on demand, while Pa11y CI is built for iterating over a list of pages in a continuous integration context. Pa11y Dashboard and Pa11y Webservice are the pair for ongoing, non-developer-facing monitoring — the Dashboard is the interface, the Webservice is the data layer behind it.
Finding all the projects
The homepage links to a page listing all of Pa11y's open source projects. Use that entry point when you want the complete set rather than the four highlighted tools — it is the canonical place to browse what the project maintains.
How to contribute
The site's guidance for contributing is short and specific: if you're interested in helping out, head to the contributors guide to get started. The project states it would love to hear from contributors, so the guide is the intended first step rather than contacting maintainers directly.
A practical sequence:
- Read the contributors guide first — it sets expectations for how contributions are made.
- Pick the project that matches your interest or the tool you already use.
- Follow the guide's process rather than opening an unsolicited change.
What the site does and doesn't tell you
The page evidence covers what each tool is for, that the tools are free and open source, and that a contributors guide exists. It does not specify licence terms, repository hosting details, contribution requirements, or response times — check the individual project pages and the contributors guide for those.