A photo with no description
Your hero image shows a person paying an invoice on their phone.
What's heard today “image”
After the fix “image, person paying an invoice on their phone”
What does your page sound like?
Millions of people browse the web by listening. screen-reader-cli is a free tool that checks any page the way a screen reader user experiences it — and tells you exactly what to fix.
Screen reader says
heading level 1, What does your page sound like?
Screen reader says
link, Get started
Screen reader says
image — …and nothing else. This is what a missing alt text sounds like.
It finds the moments where listening breaks
The tool scans your page with the same rules real screen readers follow, then shows each problem in plain language — with the exact element, why it matters, and how to fix it.
An icon button with no name
Your search button is a magnifying-glass icon — no text.
What's heard today “button” — a button to… what?
After the fix “button, Search”
Headings that skip levels
Screen reader users jump between headings to skim, like you skim visually.
What's heard today “heading level 1… heading level 4” — did I miss a section?
After the fix A clean outline: 1 → 2 → 3, like a table of contents.
Not just for developers
If you can copy-paste three lines into a terminal, you can run a full accessibility check on any public page — yours or anyone's.
Check your own work
Run it on the page you designed and hear where the experience falls apart — before a user does.
Test without a checklist
One command produces a visual report with every issue, its severity, and a screenshot of the page.
Gate your pipeline
Add --fail-on critical to CI and builds with serious accessibility problems stop automatically.
Learn by listening
The report shows what a screen reader announces, element by element. It's the fastest way to build empathy.
Set up once, then it's point-and-click
Where is the dashboard? On your computer — not on this website. This page is just the guide. After the one-time setup below, typing sr opens your personal dashboard in your browser, with a Scan button and reports. The terminal is only for setup and for those two letters.
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Install Node.js (one time)
Go to nodejs.org, download the version marked LTS, and install it like any app — next, next, done.
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Open your terminal (one time)
Mac: press Command + Space, type Terminal, press Enter. Windows: open the Start menu, type PowerShell, press Enter. A plain text window opens — that's all it is.
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Paste these two lines (one time)
Copy them into the terminal and press Enter. The first installs the tool, the second downloads the browser it scans with. Takes a few minutes.
npm install -g screen-reader-cli npx playwright install chromium -
Type
sr— the dashboard opensThat's the whole command: the letters s r, then Enter. Your browser opens a control panel that looks like this:
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Scan, read, share
Type any page address, press Scan, wait ~10 seconds, and click Open the full report. Issues are sorted by severity, each with the element, what a screen reader hears, and the suggested fix.
From now on, using the tool is: open terminal → type
sr→ everything else is clicking.
This page passes its own test
A tool that checks accessibility should be accessible. So we hold this page to the tool's strictest setting.
screenreader scan index.html --fail-on minor → exit 0. Zero violations, at the strictest threshold.
The body text is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface designed by the Braille Institute for readers with low vision. Every color combination on this page meets WCAG AA contrast.