[Cypress] Stop using checkA11y({ skipFailures: true }) and enforce strict accessibility validation

[alexwizp]

Summary

• Remove use of checkA11y({ skipFailures: true }) across Cypress tests and enforce strict accessibility validation so that accessibility violations cause test failures.
• This change ensures accessibility regressions are caught by CI rather than silently skipped.

Why

• Using skipFailures: true masked accessibility problems and allowed regressions to slip into main branch.
• Enforcing strict accessibility checks improves product quality and aligns tests with accessibility-first goals.

What was changed

• Replaced occurrences of checkA11y({ skipFailures: true }) (and equivalent patterns) so that accessibility checks run without the skipFailures flag.
• Fixed or adjusted places where necessary to make test suites pass with strict a11y checks (small target adjustments to code to fix violations)

Depends on

• fix(EuiIcon, EuiBetaBadge): correct the role attribute eui#9100

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-accessibility (Project:Accessibility)

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/fleet (Team:Fleet)

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/obs-ux-infra_services-team (Team:obs-ux-infra_services)

[jennypavlova]

Thank you for enabling the a11y tests in APM. The code change LGTM?

We already moved some tests to playwright/scout here, and we plan to do that with the rest of the Cypress tests.

@dmlemeshko do we have a similar method to checkA11y in scout, and what do you recommend using there? I see that playwright is also using axe for a11y testing, so maybe we can have something similar?

[elasticmachine]

💚 Build Succeeded

• Buildkite Build
• Commit: 8d06c8a

Metrics [docs]

Async chunks

Total size of all lazy-loaded chunks that will be downloaded as the user navigates the app

id	before	after	diff
apm	2.8MB	2.8MB	+765.0B
unifiedDocViewer	273.3KB	273.5KB	+156.0B
total			+921.0B

History

• 💔 Build #354826 failed 6757587

[alexwizp]

@dmlemeshko do we have a similar method to checkA11y in scout, and what do you recommend using there? I see that playwright is also using axe for a11y testing, so maybe we can have something similar?

@jennypavlova As a first step in the a11y project, we want to un-skip the broken tests for Cypress and FTR. After that, we'll likely add similar coverage for Scout as well. However, for now, Scout’s coverage is too low, and we need to continue supporting the previously implemented mechanisms

[dmlemeshko]

Thank you for enabling the a11y tests in APM. The code change LGTM?

We already moved some tests to playwright/scout here, and we plan to do that with the rest of the Cypress tests.

@dmlemeshko do we have a similar method to checkA11y in scout, and what do you recommend using there? I see that playwright is also using axe for a11y testing, so maybe we can have something similar?

@jennypavlova we don't have any wrapper for a11y in Scout yet, but we definitely plan to use Playwright in-built accessibility testing functionality. I can have a look and add it asap

[kibanamachine]

Starting backport for target branches: 9.2

https://github.com/elastic/kibana/actions/runs/18838635990

[kibanamachine]

💚 All backports created successfully

Status	Branch	Result
✅	9.2

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