[spitballing] Is there any interest in a Consonant design audit feature in Preflight?

[elan-tbx]

Note this idea is in its infancy, but I thought it might be worth opening a discussion around it for a possible future author tool.

The motivation behind it essentially boils down to this:

• Currently, many Milo blocks allow authors the freedom to add content to blocks that falls well outside of the block's intended use. For example, any block that makes use of our decorateBlockBg utility function can technically have a video background.
• However, while it is technically possible to author blocks like this, that does not necessarily mean they fall within Consonant's design spec of the block.

Personally, I think it makes sense to not "break" a block through code if it's been authored in a way that is, for lack of a better word, wacky. However, I can see how it could still be useful for authors to have a tool that at least checks their page for deviations from the spec, and provides a report.

Is this something that people think could be useful?

[rgclayton]

A couple questions come to mind.

• Who owns the spec?
• Will this spec change frequently?

My worry is creating confusion for authors and creating a moving target for engineering.

[elan-tbx]

Definitely some good questions. I guess my assumption was that Consonant at-large would own the spec -- or rather, this audit button would be for the specs that they own.

Just based on personal experience so far, it does not seem like they change too frequently (the current overhaul of the Aside spec is the first time this has been done in a year or so, to my knowledge). But that is a matter of opinion in the end, so probably good to discuss further.

FWIW, I had envisioned essentially using our testing framework for this. Feels like a good practice to update tests when you're making major changes anyways.

describe('Notification', () => {
  it('Does not have a video background', async () => {
    const backgroundVideo = block.querySelector('.background video');
    expect(backgroundVideo).to.not.exist;
  });
});