# Axe Manual Reviews

> Canonical HTML version: https://rocketvalidator.com/docs/api-v2/axe_manual_reviews
> Attribution: Rocket Validator (https://rocketvalidator.com)
> License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Some accessibility checks need a person to finish them. When Axe Core can't tell whether an element passes a rule, for example because it can't work out the color behind some text, it marks the result as incomplete and leaves the decision to you.

An Axe manual review groups those incomplete results on a given web page, one per Axe Core rule.

Rocket Validator only stores manual reviews for reports created with `store_incomplete_checks`, which needs `perform_axe_checks`. For any other report, the list is empty.

## Attributes

<dl>
  <dt>ID</dt>
  <dd>ID of the Axe Core rule that reports this manual review, such as <code>color-contrast</code>.</dd>

  <dt>Help</dt>
  <dd>Brief description of the rule to review.</dd>

  <dt>Help URL</dt>
  <dd>URL where you can find more info about the rule and proposed fixes.</dd>

  <dt>URL</dt>
  <dd>URL of the document the manual review refers to. Typically this is the URL of the related Web Page.</dd>

  <dt>HTML</dt>
  <dd>Code snippets showing the elements to review.</dd>

  <dt>Impact</dt>
  <dd>Severity of the issue, if the review confirms it.</dd>

  <dt>Impact Order</dt>
  <dd>Numerical representation of the Impact.</dd>

  <dt>Tags</dt>
  <dd>List of tags to categorize this manual review.</dd>

  <dt>Inserted At</dt>
  <dd>Timestamp when the Axe Manual Review was created.</dd>

  <dt>Updated At</dt>
  <dd>Timestamp when the Axe Manual Review was last updated.</dd>

  <dt>Description</dt>
  <dd>Short plain-text explanation of the rule, from the Rocket Validator guide that matches it. Null when no guide matches. This is Rocket Validator's own explanation, and is separate from the Help attribute, which carries the text supplied by the accessibility engine.</dd>

  <dt>Description Markdown</dt>
  <dd>The same explanation in Markdown. Null when no guide matches.</dd>

  <dt>Description HTML</dt>
  <dd>The same explanation as rendered HTML. Null when no guide matches.</dd>

  <dt>Guide URL</dt>
  <dd>Link to the full guide for this rule. Null when no guide matches.</dd>
</dl>


> **Guide descriptions are not available for every rule**
>
> Rocket Validator publishes a guide for the most common issues, but not for
> every possible validator message. When no guide matches a manual review, the
> four description and guide attributes are `null`. Treat them as optional.

## Relationships

<dl>
  <dt>Report</dt>
  <dd>The Report that this Axe Manual Review belongs to.</dd>

  <dt>Web Page</dt>
  <dd>The Web Page that this Axe Manual Review belongs to.</dd>
</dl>

## Example


> **Example: Axe Manual Review**
>
> ```json
> {
>   "data": {
>     "attributes": {
>       "description": "Text elements must have sufficient color contrast between the foreground text and the background behind it. WCAG 2.1 (AA) requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text and 3:1 for large text. To fix violations, adjust your text color, background color, or both until the required contrast ratio is met.",
>       "description_html": "<p>Text elements must have sufficient color contrast between the foreground text and the background behind it. WCAG 2.1 (AA) requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text and 3:1 for large text. To fix violations, adjust your text color, background color, or both until the required contrast ratio is met.</p>",
>       "description_markdown": "Text elements must have sufficient color contrast between the foreground text and the background behind it. WCAG 2.1 (AA) requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text and 3:1 for large text. To fix violations, adjust your text color, background color, or both until the required contrast ratio is met.",
>       "guide_url": "https://rocketvalidator.com/accessibility-validation/axe/4.11/color-contrast",
>       "help": "Elements must meet minimum color contrast ratio thresholds",
>       "help_url": "https://dequeuniversity.com/rules/axe/4.11/color-contrast",
>       "html": [
>         "<a href=\"/pricing\" class=\"hero-button\">See pricing</a>",
>         "<span class=\"badge\">New</span>"
>       ],
>       "impact": "serious",
>       "impact_order": 3,
>       "inserted_at": "2026-10-06T13:54:35",
>       "tags": [
>         "cat.color",
>         "wcag2aa",
>         "wcag143",
>         "EN-301-549",
>         "EN-9.1.4.3"
>       ],
>       "updated_at": "2026-10-06T13:54:35",
>       "url": "https://dummy.rocketvalidator.com/about/"
>     },
>     "id": "color-contrast",
>     "relationships": {
>       "report": {
>         "links": {
>           "related": "https://rocketvalidator.com/api/v2/reports/2455a63a-7e16-4cbf-8455-6c9a88195142"
>         }
>       },
>       "web_page": {
>         "links": {
>           "related": "https://rocketvalidator.com/api/v2/reports/2455a63a-7e16-4cbf-8455-6c9a88195142/web_pages/8683545"
>         }
>       }
>     },
>     "type": "axe_manual_review"
>   },
>   "jsonapi": {
>     "version": "1.0"
>   }
> }
> ```

## List Axe manual reviews on a web page

To list the Axe manual reviews found on a web page, send a `GET` request to `/api/v2/reports/$REPORT_ID/web_pages/$WEBPAGE_ID/axe_manual_reviews`.


> **Example: list Axe manual reviews for a web page**
>
> ```
> GET /api/v2/reports/$REPORT_ID/web_pages/$WEB_PAGE_ID/axe_manual_reviews
> ```

### Filtering by help

To include only the Axe manual reviews of a given kind, use the `filter[help]` option.


> **Example: filter Axe manual reviews for a web page about "contrast"**
>
> ```
> GET /api/v2/reports/$REPORT_ID/web_pages/$WEB_PAGE_ID/axe_manual_reviews?filter[help]=contrast
> ```

### Filtering by tag

To include only the manual reviews for a given `tags` combination, use the `filter[tags]` options:

* `filter[tags][mode]` setting the tag combination mode, which can be `any`, `all` or `none`.
* `filter[tags][list]` including a comma-separated list of tags.


> **Example: filter Axe manual reviews for a web page tagged with "wcag2aa"**
>
> ```
> GET /api/v2/reports/$REPORT_ID/web_pages/$WEB_PAGE_ID/axe_manual_reviews?filter[tags][mode]=any&filter[tags][list]=wcag2aa
> ```

## Retrieve an Axe manual review

To show an individual Axe manual review on a web page, send a `GET` request to `/api/v2/reports/$REPORT_ID/web_pages/$WEB_PAGE_ID/axe_manual_reviews/$RULE_ID`


> **Example: retrieve the color contrast Axe manual review for a web page**
>
> ```
> GET /api/v2/reports/$REPORT_ID/web_pages/$WEBPAGE_ID/axe_manual_reviews/color-contrast
> ```