Allow pa11y-ci to access authenticated areas

[Jamesking56]

It would be nice if we could give pa11y some login details for certain pages so that pa11y could login and accessibility test pages that require authentication

[ptmkenny]

pa11y can already do this, so there should be a way to do something similar in pa11y-ci. I'm searching for a solution now.

[greggles]

Here's a stackoverflow conversation about how to achieve it: that uses the "actions" in .pa11y-ci to authenticate:

"urls": [
    {
      "url": "http://example.com/first-page",
        "actions": [
          "navigate to http://example.com/user/logout"
        ]
    },
    "REPLACE_BASE_URL/user/login",
    "REPLACE_BASE_URL/user/register",
    "REPLACE_BASE_URL/user/password",
    {
      "url": "http://example.lndo.site/auth-page-0",
        "actions": [
          "navigate to http://example.lndo.site/user/login",
          "set field #edit-name to pa11y@example.com",
          "set field #edit-pass to password",
          "click element #edit-submit",
          "wait for element #user-page-unique-element to be visible"
       ]
     },
     "http://example.com/auth-page-1",
     "http://example.com/auth-page-2",
    ]
  }

You likely need to tweak the useIncognitoBrowserContext setting as well. I have not tried this solution.

[josebolos]

This should be certainly possible using actions. Please create a new issue with the specific example config that is not working. Thank you!

[kussmaul]

This is (an excerpt of) what works for me, with useIncognitoBrowserContext false (no quotes).

"defaults" : {
  "useIncognitoBrowserContext": false
},

"urls" : [
  {
    "__NOTE"  : "this should always be FIRST (if browser context is preserved)",
    "url"     : "http://localhost:4200/login",
    "actions" : [
      "navigate to http://localhost:4200/login",
      "wait for element #login to be visible",
      "screen capture .pa11y/login0.png",
      "set field #username to Pa11y Author",
      "set field #password to Pa11y Password",
      "click element #login",
      "wait for element #appMenu to be visible",
      "screen capture .pa11y/login1.png"
    ]
  },

  {
    "url"     : "http://localhost:4200/activity-list",
    "actions" : [
      "navigate to http://localhost:4200/activity-list",
      "screen capture .pa11y/activity-list0.png",
      "wait for path to be /activity-list",
      "screen capture .pa11y/activity-list1.png"
    ]
  },
  ...
]