@joaomoreno might need your list help here. The issue above only reproduces when using Tab key to move focus into the notification toast. It does not reproduce when you select the command to focus the notification toast.

Printing the active element in both cases I see a difference: when using Tab key, the active element properties are:

And when I use the command (which calls focusFirst), I see:

Given there are more properties now, specifically around the active descendent the ARIA label is announced properly in the second case only, not the first.

Given these toasts are always just 1 list with 1 item, I wonder if either I should always just focus the first item in the list (not sure about the consequences though, esp. visually), or whether there could be a property in the list to control this?

I wonder if either I should always just focus the first item in the list

I suggest we give this a try before committing to any changes down in the list. It might be fine even visually since the List wouldn't have DOM focus. Let me know how that goes.

@joaomoreno tried that, but the styling is off now, at least in some themes. Check how in GH Light theme the toast appears when I call focusFirst vs not:

Maybe I need to detect the tab-key moving into the toast container and then call focusFirst on the list? That is a bit ugly tbh.

I found an elegant fix by setting the ARIA widget label to be the notification of the toast 👍