a11y.form input missing name

a11y.form-input-missing-name

Rule ID: a11y.form-input-missing-name Severity: WARN Category: a11y Target Standards: WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value - Level A), HTML5 Specification (Section 4.10.5 The input element & form submission), W3C Form Usability & Autofill Standards

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1. Overview & Core Invariant

Ensures form input controls declare an identifying name or id attribute for form submission and autofill (WCAG 4.1.2)

Core Invariant:

"Form input controls (, , <textarea>) must declare an identifying 'name' or 'id' attribute."

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2. Technical Grounding & Engine Realities

Browsers, password managers, and native form processors rely on 'name' and 'id' attributes to identify field context.

When form controls lack both 'name' and 'id':

1. Autofill Failure: Chrome, Safari, and password managers (1Password, Bitwarden) cannot identify whether an input is for email, username, or credit card, forcing users to type manually.
2. Silent Form Data Loss: Standard HTML submission constructs FormData from controls with a 'name' attribute. Inputs without 'name' are completely omitted from the payload.
3. Unidentifiable Tree Nodes: Screen readers and automated testing frameworks cannot reference or locate the input deterministically.

Charites flags form controls that fail to specify at least one identifying key ('name' or 'id').

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3. Vulnerability & Risk Taxonomy

Risk Vector	Severity	Impact
Silent Form Submission Data Loss	HIGH	Form inputs without 'name' attributes are excluded from native FormData submissions.
Password Manager & Autofill Breakdown	MEDIUM	Browser autofill cannot populate user credentials, causing login drop-off.

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4. Non-Compliant Code Patterns (Bad Examples)

TSX (Input missing both name and id attributes):

<input type="email" className="w-full border px-3 py-2" placeholder="nama@domain.com" />

ASTRO (Select dropdown without name or id identifier):

<select class="border p-2"><option value="id">Indonesia</option></select>

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5. Compliant Implementation Patterns (Good Examples)

TSX (Properly identified input with matching name and id):

<input id="user-email" name="email" type="email" className="w-full border px-3 py-2" placeholder="nama@domain.com" />

ASTRO (Select dropdown with descriptive name and id):

<select name="country" id="country" class="border p-2"><option value="id">Indonesia</option></select>

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6. Detection & Verification Pipeline (How The Rule Evaluates Code)

This a11y rule evaluates template markup and cross-references resolved design tokens for accessibility:

flowchart TD
    Node["AST Node (Astro / TSX element)"] --> Inspect["1. Inspect Interactive & Semantic Attributes"]
    Inspect --> BindCheck["2. Cross-Reference Form IDs / Labels / ARIA"]
    Inspect --> ContrastCheck["3. Query Token Graph for Foreground & Background Color"]
    ContrastCheck --> Luminance["4. Compute WCAG 2.2 Contrast Ratio"]
    BindCheck --> Invariant{"5. Validate Accessibility Invariant"}
    Luminance --> Invariant
    Invariant -- "Compliant" --> Safe["Pass"]
    Invariant -- "Violation" --> IgnoreCheck{"6. Check charites:ignore directive"}
    IgnoreCheck -- "Ignored" --> Safe
    IgnoreCheck -- "Not Ignored" --> Diag["7. Emit Diagnostic: a11y.form-input-missing-name"]

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Step-by-Step Evaluation:

1. AST Traversal: Inspects semantic elements, form controls, images, and landmark containers.
2. Structural & Attribute Invariant Check: Verifies accessible names, heading hierarchies, label/input bindings, and positive tabindex avoidance.
3. Token-Aware Contrast Verification: If analyzing color classes, queries token.Context to resolve foreground and background values, calculating relative luminance ratios.
4. Directive Suppression Check: Inspects preceding comments for charites:ignore a11y.form-input-missing-name.
5. Diagnostic Emission: Emits WCAG-grounded diagnostics for non-compliant patterns.

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7. Verification & Test Harness (How The Test Works: 1-SSOT Tri-Corpus)

This rule is rigorously tested and validated across the canonical 1-SSOT Tri-Corpus in tests/correctness/a11y.form-input-missing-name/:

flowchart TD
    subgraph GoldenCorpus ["1-SSOT Tri-Corpus Test Matrix for a11y.form-input-missing-name"]
        subgraph P ["Positive Corpus (tests/correctness/a11y.form-input-missing-name/positive/)"]
            P1["P1: Obvious Direct Violation"]
            P2["P2: Indirect / Variant Concatenation"]
            P3["P3: Helper / clsx / cn Wrapper"]
            P4["P4: Deeply Nested Elements"]
            P5["P5: Aliased Imports / Re-exports"]
        end
        subgraph N ["Negative Corpus (tests/correctness/a11y.form-input-missing-name/negative/)"]
            N1["N1: Valid Design Tokens"]
            N2["N2: Explicit charites:ignore Directive"]
            N3["N3: Third-Party / Vendor Components"]
            N4["N4: Clean Semantic HTML"]
            N5["N5: Untokenized Custom Values (Banana Test)"]
        end
        subgraph A ["Adversarial Corpus (tests/correctness/a11y.form-input-missing-name/adversarial/)"]
            A1["A1: Template Literal Interpolations"]
            A2["A2: Ternary Conditional Expressions"]
            A3["A3: Spread Properties & Dynamic Overrides"]
            A4["A4: Dynamic Object Class Syntax"]
            A5["A5: Shadowed Variable Identifiers"]
            A6["A6: Nested Closures & HOC Wrappers"]
            A7["A7: Obfuscated Classes & Cyclic Tokens"]
        end
    end

    P --> TestRunner["Automated Runner (rule_test.go)"]
    N --> TestRunner
    A --> TestRunner
    TestRunner --> Gates["Quality Gates: Zero Panic, Zero False-Positive, Zero Bypass"]

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• Positive Fixtures (P1-P5): Verified to trigger diagnostics at exact lines and column spans.
• Negative Fixtures (N1-N5): Verified to produce zero diagnostics on valid tokens and legitimate exemptions.
• Adversarial Fixtures (A1-A7): Verified to prevent evasion across dynamic expressions, string interpolations, and cyclic references.

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8. How to Suppress (Ignore Directives)

If this pattern is required for an intentional exception, suppress the diagnostic using the canonical Charites Rule ID:

<!-- charites:ignore a11y.form-input-missing-name intentional exception -->

// charites:ignore a11y.form-input-missing-name intentional exception

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9. Configuration Reference (charites.yaml)

rules:
  a11y.form-input-missing-name:
    severity: warn # error | warn | info | off