pour-cli

Audit any URL against WCAG 2.2 from your terminal, powered by the pour engine: a clean-room WCAG engine written from the W3C specifications, the same engine behind pour.dev.

npm install -g pour-cli
pour example.com

The page is loaded in headless Chrome, the engine runs against the live DOM, and the findings land on stdout: rule, severity, WCAG success criterion, the exact failing elements as CSS paths, and what to fix. Findings the engine cannot judge conclusively are reported as "needs review" rather than guessed at, and the exit code makes it a CI gate out of the box.

Requirements

Node 18+, and an installed Chrome (or Chromium, or Edge). The CLI drives the browser you already have via puppeteer-core, so installing it never downloads one. Point --browser (or PUPPETEER_EXECUTABLE_PATH) at a binary to use something else.

Usage

pour <url> [options]

  --json               print the full engine results as JSON
  --viewport WxH       viewport (default 1440x900); a bare width implies x900
  --scroll             scroll through the page before auditing (lazy content)
  --wait <ms>          extra settle delay after load (default 0)
  --timeout <ms>       navigation timeout (default 30000)
  --bp                 include best-practice rules alongside WCAG A+AA
  --exclude <sel>      CSS selector excluded from every rule
  --fail-on <what>     violations (default) | incomplete | none
  --max-nodes <n>      element details shown per rule (default 5, 0 = all)
  --level <detail>     quiet (the totals line only) | rules (one line per
                       rule, no elements) | max (default: everything)
  --filter <name>      screenshot the page through a vision/sensory simulation
                       instead of auditing (--filter list shows them all)
  --shot [file]        screenshot mode: save a PNG (default name derived from
                       the URL and filter), no audit runs
  --full               capture the full page height, not just the viewport
  --insecure           ignore TLS certificate errors
  --browser <path>     Chrome/Chromium binary to drive
  --headful            run the browser with a visible window

Exit codes: 0 clean, 1 findings (per --fail-on), 2 error.

A scheme-less URL is tried over https first and falls back to http when the TLS handshake fails, the same way a browser address bar behaves.

Vision simulations

--filter renders the page as someone with a particular vision or sensory condition experiences it and saves the result as a PNG:

pour example.com --filter deuteranopia
pour example.com --filter glaucoma --shot tunnel.png
pour --filter list

Color-vision filters use the Brettel/Vienot/Mollon and Machado matrices (via DaltonLens), the same simulations the pour extension ships. Filters and audits are exclusive modes: some simulations restyle the page, so auditing through one would audit the simulation rather than the site.

The numbers depend on the page state

Responsive pages serve different content per breakpoint, and the engine measures what is actually rendered, so the viewport is part of the result: the report header echoes it, and comparing two runs only makes sense at the same width. --scroll walks the page first so lazy-loaded content is in the DOM; that changes the numbers too, by design.

CI

- run: npx pour-cli https://staging.example.com --fail-on violations --level quiet

--level quiet keeps the log to the one totals line; the exit code still carries the verdict. Drop it (or use --level rules) when you want the findings in the CI log too.

License

MIT