React Native A11y

Native-first, all-in-one React Native accessibility toolkit — screen reader focus order & announcements (VoiceOver / TalkBack), physical (external) keyboard support, keyboard-connection status, and iOS accessibility containers, on iOS and Android. Everything ships under a single A11y.* namespace.

• 🔢 Screen reader focus order — define the exact traversal sequence, independent of render order
• 🃏 Cards with inner buttons — card action and nested controls, both accessible at once
• 🔒 Focus lock — keep VoiceOver, TalkBack, and keyboard focus inside modals & overlays
• 📣 Announcements — reliable, navigation-aware messages and screen/panel transitions
• 🎯 Keyboard focus management — focus/blur events, autoFocus, imperative focus via ref
• ⌨️ Key press events — handle key-down / key-up with full modifier info
• 🎨 Native focus styling — iOS halo & tintColor, Android focus highlight
• 📦 iOS accessibility containers — UIAccessibilityContainer semantic grouping via a11yUIContainer
• 🔌 Keyboard connection status — listen for hardware keyboard connect/disconnect with useIsKeyboardConnected
• ✨ Optimistic values (iOS) — announce the predicted value the moment the user acts, not the stale one (a react-native-a11y-state-patch alternative)
• 📡 Runtime status hooks — useIsKeyboardConnected, useIsScreenReaderEnabled
• ⚡ New Architecture · Old Architecture · Bridgeless · Expo prebuild

It bundles the full feature set of four focused libraries into one self-contained package:

Bundled library	What it brings
react-native-a11y-order	Screen reader focus order control & announcements
react-native-external-keyboard	Using & implementing physical keyboard features
react-native-is-keyboard-connected	Listening for hardware keyboard connection
react-native-a11y-container	iOS UIAccessibilityContainer semantic grouping

Plus a built-in optimistic values workaround — an alternative to react-native-a11y-state-patch — that announces the predicted accessibility value the moment the user acts, instead of the stale one.

Important

This package re-merges the focused libraries into one. react-native-a11y was originally split — for easier development and support — into react-native-a11y-order, react-native-external-keyboard, react-native-is-keyboard-connected, and react-native-a11y-container. They are now mature, and this package recombines all of them — plus the optimistic-values workaround — under one unified A11y.* namespace. See The rework below.

Tip

The focused packages stay published and are mutually exclusive — install exactly one. Use react-native-a11y for the complete toolkit; reach for a single focused package only if you need just that one capability.

Installation

yarn add react-native-a11y
cd ios && pod install

Get started with the getting started guide or jump straight to the component overview.

Quick start

Everything is imported from the single A11y namespace, with imperative APIs, hooks, and the keyboard-focus HOC at the top level.

Keyboard focus — A11y.Pressable, A11y.View, and A11y.Input are drop-in, keyboard-focusable views:

import { A11y } from 'react-native-a11y';
import { Text } from 'react-native';

<A11y.Pressable
  autoFocus
  onPress={onPress}
  focusStyle={{ backgroundColor: 'dodgerblue' }}
>
  <Text>Press me with Space or Enter</Text>
</A11y.Pressable>;

Screen reader order & announcements — A11y.Order + A11y.Index define the traversal sequence; announce posts a message:

import { A11y, announce } from 'react-native-a11y';

<A11y.Order>
  <A11y.Index index={1}><Text>Read first</Text></A11y.Index>
  <A11y.Index index={3}><Text>Read third</Text></A11y.Index>
  <A11y.Index index={2}><Text>Read second</Text></A11y.Index>
</A11y.Order>;

announce('Changes saved');

A11y.View is one component that accepts both prop sets — give it keyboard props, screen-reader props, or both. To add keyboard focus to a component the namespace doesn't cover, wrap it with the withKeyboardFocus HOC.

Note

On iOS, long-pressing the spacebar does not fire a long press — iOS routes it through Full Keyboard Access. Use Tab + M (the default "open context menu" command) instead, via onContextMenuPress.

Architecture support

Capability	Supported
New Architecture (Fabric / Turbo Modules)	✅
Old Architecture (Bridge)	✅
Bridgeless mode	✅
Expo (prebuild / bare)	✅

Documentation

New here? Start with the getting started guide, then follow a task-focused guide. The full docs index links everything.

Guides — physical keyboard

• Pressable focus handling — focus/blur events, focusStyle, render props
• Native focus styling — iOS halo & tintColor, Android focus highlight
• Programmatic focus — ref.focus(), keyboardFocus(), autoFocus
• Keyboard text input — A11y.Input, focusType, blurType
• Keyboard focus order — link-based, index-based, direction locking

Guides — screen reader

• Screen-reader focus order — A11y.Order + A11y.Index
• Cards with inner buttons — A11y.Card
• iOS semantic containers — a11yUIContainer
• Screen-reader focus events — focus/blur callbacks
• Focus lock — A11y.FocusTrap / A11y.FocusFrame
• Announcements — announce / ScreenReader, A11y.PaneTitle

Guides — new in the merge

• Optimistic accessibility values — predicted-value announcements (iOS)
• Connection & runtime status — useIsKeyboardConnected, useIsScreenReaderEnabled

Reference

• Component overview — every component and its props
• API reference — announcements, modules, hooks, the imperative ref, shared types
• Legacy API — the Legacy.* imperative 0.7 shim
• Migration guide — from 0.7, -order, or -external-keyboard

What's available

Components

Export	Purpose
A11y.View	Unified focusable View — screen-reader + keyboard props, all opt-in.
A11y.Pressable	Keyboard- and screen-reader-focusable Pressable.
A11y.Input	TextInput with keyboard focus support.
A11y.Order / A11y.Index	Declarative screen-reader traversal order.
A11y.Card	Card that keeps inner interactive elements accessible.
A11y.FocusTrap / A11y.FocusFrame	Confine screen-reader and keyboard focus to a region.
A11y.PaneTitle / A11y.ScreenChange	Screen / panel transition announcements.
A11y.FocusGroup	iOS focusGroupIdentifier grouping + shared tintColor.
withKeyboardFocus(C)	HOC that adds keyboard focus to any Pressable/Touchable-like component.

API

Export	Purpose
announce / ScreenReader	Reliable, navigation-aware announcements.
Keyboard	Dismiss the soft keyboard from a hardware keyboard.
KeyboardFocus ref	Imperative focus handle (focus, keyboardFocus, screenReaderFocus).
Hooks	useIsKeyboardConnected, useIsScreenReaderEnabled, useIsViewFocused, …
Focus-order props	orderId, order*, orderIndex, orderGroup, lockFocus.
Legacy.*	Imperative 0.7 focus-order shim (useFocusOrder, …).

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The rework

The original all-in-one react-native-a11y (0.7.0) was split into focused packages to make each capability easier to develop, test, and support:

• react-native-a11y-order — screen reader focus order & announcements
• react-native-external-keyboard — physical keyboard support
• react-native-is-keyboard-connected — hardware keyboard connection status
• react-native-a11y-container — iOS UIAccessibilityContainer grouping

Feature work on all of them is now complete, and they are recombined here into a single, self-contained react-native-a11y — rebuilt fresh from the modern packages (whose native bridges are newer than the legacy 0.7.0 code), not patched on top of the old one. It also folds in an optimistic-values workaround as an alternative to react-native-a11y-state-patch.

What this means for you:

• One unified namespace. A single A11y.View / A11y.Pressable / A11y.Input takes both screen-reader and keyboard props; each capability is opt-in. A single A11y.FocusTrap / A11y.FocusFrame confines screen-reader and keyboard focus.
• Everything in one place. Screen-reader order, keyboard support, keyboard-connection status, iOS accessibility containers, and optimistic value announcements — no need to combine multiple libraries by hand.
• Self-contained. No runtime dependency on the split packages — install only react-native-a11y.
• Migration shim. The imperative 0.7 focus-order API lives under Legacy.* for a near drop-in upgrade.

Coming from 0.7 or any of the focused packages (react-native-a11y-order, react-native-external-keyboard, react-native-is-keyboard-connected, react-native-a11y-container)? Each path has its own section in the migration guide.

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Contributing

Any type of contribution is highly appreciated. Feel free to create PRs, raise issues, or share ideas — see the contributing guide for the development workflow.

Acknowledgements

This library stands on the work behind all of its source packages. Thanks to the initial authors Andrii Koval, Michail Chavkin, and Dzmitry Khamitsevich, and to everyone who contributed, reported issues, and followed along across react-native-a11y-order, react-native-external-keyboard, react-native-is-keyboard-connected, and react-native-a11y-container.

License

MIT

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Made with create-react-native-library