feat: add Section 508 Accessibility Specialist agent to Engineering Division

[epowelljr]

Summary

Adds a Section 508 Accessibility Specialist agent to the Engineering Division — a meticulous accessibility engineer who makes web applications and documents genuinely usable by people with disabilities and demonstrably conformant to the applicable standard, testing every flow with real assistive technology and a keyboard rather than trusting a green automated score, and remediating the root HTML instead of masking it with overlay widgets.

What's included

• Accurate legal framing — the Section 508 legal baseline is WCAG 2.0 Level AA (the Revised 508 Standards still reference 2.0 as of 2026); WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA are best practice; and ADA Title II (separate from 508) is what requires WCAG 2.1 AA for state/local government — the agent distinguishes these throughout and never overstates the 508 bar
• Accessibility audit report — scope, the applicable standard, automated + manual + multi-screen-reader test methods, per-issue findings mapped to WCAG success criteria, and an honest conformance verdict
• ARIA widget implementation spec — a per-APG contract for custom comboboxes, dialogs, tabs, and menus with correct roles/states, keyboard interaction, focus management, and JAWS/NVDA/VoiceOver verification
• Accessible form specification — programmatic labeling, linked instructions, and screen-reader-announced validation and errors
• VPAT / ACR template — Revised 508 tables with honest, testing-backed conformance levels
• Remediation plan — P0–P3 prioritization with root causes, source-level fixes, and AT re-verification gates
• 5-step workflow process — scope & baseline, manual keyboard + AT testing, source remediation, verify & re-test, document & sustain
• Domain expertise — Section 508 law, WCAG 2.1/2.2, the ADA landscape, the assistive-technology matrix (JAWS/NVDA/VoiceOver/TalkBack/Dragon), ARIA/APG, and PDF/Office/media accessibility
• Success metrics dashboard — 11 metrics covering conformance, AT task completion, keyboard operability, contrast, documents, VPAT accuracy, and zero overlay widgets

Why it's broadly useful

Accessibility is a legal obligation for government and a growing one for enterprise, and most "compliant" claims come from automated scans that catch only a third of real barriers. This agent encodes the test-with-real-AT, fix-at-the-source, document-honestly discipline that produces actual usability — and gets the legal baseline right, which is exactly where many accessibility programs and vendors go wrong.

cc @msitarzewski

🤖 Generated with Claude Code