Axe Accessibility (Claude Code plugin)

Deque's accessibility toolkit for coding agents — get set up fast and teach your coding agent to ship accessible UI.

v1 focuses on the axe MCP Server and its analyze and remediate tools, wrapped in a smooth onboarding + usage workflow. The plugin is the umbrella for Deque's agent-facing accessibility capabilities; more will be added over time.

• Wire up the server for your IDE/MCP client, with your choice of authentication (API key or OAuth 2.0).
• Teach your agent to run the mandatory analyze → remediate → verify loop on every UI change.
• Audit on demand — analyze a page, remediate each violation, and re-verify until automated accessibility violations hit zero.

What's included

Component	Type	What it does
mcp-usage	Skill (auto)	Background knowledge so any agent calls analyze/remediate correctly (field mapping, credit awareness, the workflow). Loads automatically on accessibility tasks.
/axe-accessibility:mcp-setup	Skill (command)	Interactive setup: pick auth (API key or OAuth), configure your client, verify the connection.
/axe-accessibility:mcp-generate-instructions	Skill (command)	Generate/merge agent-instruction files (CLAUDE.md, .github/copilot-instructions.md, Cursor rules, AGENTS.md) that enforce the workflow.
/axe-accessibility:mcp-audit	Skill (command)	Drive the loop on a URL: analyze → remediate → apply → re-verify until 0 violations or a round cap.
.mcp.json	MCP server	Ships an auth-agnostic axe MCP Server entry (Docker) that works with either API key or OAuth.

Prerequisites

• Docker installed and running. The server is the public image dequesystems/axe-mcp-server:latest, pulled automatically on first launch (no docker login required).
• An axe DevTools for Web subscription — the Bundle plan includes axe MCP Server access. Without it, the analyze/remediate tools will fail to authenticate.
• For OAuth: Node.js 22 LTS+ (the bundled config calls npx @deque/axe-auth).

Installation

Run locally for development:

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/axe-accessibility

Install from the Deque-hosted marketplace (this repo doubles as one):

/plugin marketplace add dequelabs/axe-accessibility
/plugin install axe-accessibility

Once accepted into Anthropic's community marketplace, users can also:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
/plugin install axe-accessibility@claude-community

Publishing

Two distribution paths, not mutually exclusive:

1. Self-hosted marketplace — push this repo under dequelabs; .claude-plugin/marketplace.json makes it installable immediately via /plugin marketplace add.
2. Anthropic community marketplace — run claude plugin validate . (the review pipeline runs the same check plus automated safety screening), then submit at claude.ai/settings/plugins/submit or platform.claude.com/plugins/submit. Approved plugins are pinned by commit SHA in anthropics/claude-plugins-community and synced nightly. The curated claude-plugins-official marketplace is selected by Anthropic at its discretion (no application).

Quick start

1. /axe-accessibility:mcp-setup — choose API key or OAuth and connect the server. Verify with /mcp.
2. /axe-accessibility:mcp-generate-instructions all — bake the workflow into your repo's agent instructions.
3. /axe-accessibility:mcp-audit http://localhost:3000 — analyze, remediate, and verify until clean.

Authentication

Two mechanisms are supported; choose during /axe-accessibility:mcp-setup:

• API key — create one at the axe Account Portal (API Keys → "axe MCP Server" product), then export AXE_API_KEY.
• OAuth 2.0 — npx -y @deque/axe-auth login (browser PKCE flow; tokens stored in the OS keychain with auto-refresh).

The bundled .mcp.json is auth-agnostic: it mints an OAuth token and passes exactly one credential — the OAuth AXE_ACCESS_TOKEN if you're logged in, otherwise AXE_API_KEY. (The server rejects having both set, so the config never passes both.) Set AXE_SERVER_URL for private cloud / on-prem deployments.

Note: Each remediate call consumes AI credits from your organization's allocation. analyze does not, so re-verifying is cheap.

License

MIT © Deque Systems, Inc.