May 2026 Development Report

Reporting period: Apr 7 – May 5, 2026 Sources: #599, #604, #609, #612, #617 Contributors: T. Daniel, C. Aitken

Executive Summary

May was a highly productive month for Equalify, with 31 tasks completed across 156 code commits and significant progress on platform extensibility and user-facing improvements. The team delivered the WordPress integration plugin from initial development through review, completed the site crawling module for automated URL discovery, and resolved several user-facing bugs impacting data accuracy and navigation. Infrastructure maturity advanced with database schema version control and a formal technical specification document.

Highlights

• Delivered the WordPress integration plugin, enabling WordPress sites to automatically synchronize their URL inventory with Equalify for scanning, including multisite support and review by the RED team
• Completed the site crawling module, allowing users to automatically discover and import URLs from a site via the audit builder interface
• Implemented server-side CSV export for the blockers table, enabling users to download complete blocker data regardless of table pagination
• Added admin-settable co-brand logo, allowing institutional partners to display their own branding alongside Equalify without hard-coded customizations
• Resolved multiple user-facing bugs, including pagination errors, inconsistent link targets, and incorrect URL count displays, improving overall platform reliability

Key Metrics

Completed Work

Team

• Completed the external linked CSV feature for audit URLs, enabling WordPress plugin integration and just-in-time URL synchronization at scan time.

T. Daniel

• Verified that the email delivery fix implemented in the previous period is working correctly in production.
• Added URL count display to chart tooltips and the scans table for improved data visibility.
• Completed the WordPress plugin based on the prior technical review, delivering core functionality and addressing all RED team requested changes.
• Created the Service Request standard operating procedure documentation.
• Reviewed user documentation prepared by Amanda and provided technical notes.
• Completed the accessibility survey.
• Resolved an inconsistent link target bug affecting navigation behavior.
• Fixed a pagination bug in the platform interface.
• Implemented an admin-settable co-brand logo feature, allowing institutional partners to configure their own branding.
• Corrected incorrect URL count displays in audit views.
• Fixed the blocker detail page performance issue where navigation to an individual blocker showed a "not found" state before loading.
• Coordinated with the RED team on deployment of the WordPress integration plugin.

C. Aitken

• Coordinated with Blake and Dean to separate PDF-related costs from core Equalify costs in the AWS account and established cost ceiling guidance.
• Implemented database schema version control and Hasura metadata version control.
• Built a Chrome extension prototype for accessibility testing workflows.
• Completed the Equalify Tech Spec sheet documenting the platform's technical architecture.
• Completed the crawl module, including: adding a crawl button to the audit builder, setting up a Lambda function for crawling via Sitemapper, creating an API endpoint, and providing a toggleable URL table in the audit builder for selecting discovered URLs.
• Improved the monthly report generation script with references to previous reports for style consistency.
• Coordinated with Amanda regarding involvement in monthly report review and release processes.

Notable Events

• Apr 7 (B. Bertuccelli-Booth): A design decision was made to implement configurable co-brand logos rather than hard-coding the UIC logo, leading to the admin-settable co-brand logo feature.
• Apr 22 (stefinp23): Received positive stakeholder feedback on the development reports, noting their helpfulness and the team's efforts in producing them.

Risks & Blockers

• Anomalous PDF scan metrics: The scanStarted metric is reporting unusually high numbers of PDF scans, and PDF-heavy audits are showing elevated blocker counts that require investigation.
• Duplicate Blocker ID / namespace collision: Short ID generation is producing collisions, which may cause scans to appear incomplete. Under active investigation.

In Progress & Upcoming

Development

• Align language used in the WordPress plugin and Build Audit screen to ensure consistency and emphasize synchronization functionality. (T. Daniel)
• Improve blocker filter categories for more intuitive navigation. (T. Daniel)
• Resolve the duplicate Blocker ID and namespace collision issue. (C. Aitken)
• Add a scanning state indicator to the Audits screen so users can see when scans are in progress. (T. Daniel)
• Update documentation with new site onboarding workflows for crawling and WordPress integration. (C. Aitken)
• Deploy crawl and WordPress integration features to staging. (C. Aitken)
• Work with Amanda to update user-facing documentation. (C. Aitken)
• Investigate anomalous PDF scan metrics and elevated blocker counts. (C. Aitken)
• Explore WebAIMee-style LLM integration for improved individual blocker descriptions and remediation guidance. (T. Daniel)

Operations

• Correct the production URL configuration for Hasura. (C. Aitken)
• Include the crawl and CSV integration features in the CI/CD pipeline. (C. Aitken)
• Get a clean AWS account provisioned for infrastructure separation. (C. Aitken)
• Coordinate with Helen and Michael on documentation workflow and communications responsibilities. (C. Aitken)
• Divide Infrastructure and FOSS sprint tasks among team members. (C. Aitken)

Newly Identified Work

• Establish a versioning system and strategy for the platform, potentially using semantic versioning with standardized commit message formats. Document the new system and surface the current version in the user interface.
• Evaluate the addition of UX performance metrics to monitor frontend responsiveness. (T. Daniel)
• Contact WebAIM regarding potential integration partnership. (T. Daniel)

Development Activity

Contributor Activity

Active Repositories

Recent Commit Highlights

• Developed the WordPress integration plugin end-to-end, including core synchronization functionality, multisite-safe CSV token generation, a clean uninstall script, options persistence fixes, sync versioning, and all changes requested by the RED team review.
• Implemented server-side CSV export for the blockers table with total blocker count display, ensuring users can export complete datasets rather than only the visible page.
• Fixed audits table sorting for the status column to ensure correct ordering behavior.
• Redesigned the Equalify Hub homepage as a product showcase with a dedicated dashboard page, Reflow beta banner, consolidated roadmap within the about page, and streamlined site navigation.
• Added support for nested documentation structure in the Hub, including dedicated section list pages for the user guide and nested directory support for Reflow documentation.
• Improved Hub color contrast and semantic markup to meet accessibility standards.
• Established the Reflow Reader repository with project documentation describing the hackathon context and participation guidelines.

Planned Sprints

Infrastructure Sprint (1-2 weeks)

This sprint focuses on making Equalify deployable by any institution. The team will select an infrastructure-as-code framework, create build and deployment scripts for provisioning all required components (Lambda functions, databases, and their relationships), determine a deployment strategy for pushing code updates to provisioned infrastructure, and produce technical documentation covering provisioning, deployment, and a developer-oriented introduction to the platform.

Design and Maintenance Sprint (1-2 weeks)

This sprint will establish a cohesive visual direction for the platform, including alignment on an overall palette, branding guidelines, a component design system for interface consistency, dark mode support, mobile-responsive layouts, and a general code and style cleanup including componentization and minimization of global styles. The sprint will also include planning discussions for roll-up reporting across multiple audits and more fine-grained user-to-audit group permissions.

Onboarding Features Sprint (1-2 weeks)

This sprint will deliver site onboarding capabilities, including a Lambda-based crawling service for new sites, integration of onboarding features into the audit builder, and a CSV-based user import feature.