AddThisFeature

Focus Ring System

Give every focusable control one clear focus indicator that belongs to the design.

moderate Accessibility & Internationalization

What it adds

A single focus treatment applied consistently across buttons, links, inputs, cards, rows, and custom controls.

What your agent is told to do

5
  1. 1

    Inventory every focusable element in the app, including the ones made focusable by hand — clickable rows, cards, canvas objects, custom selects — and confirm each shows the shared treatment.

  2. 2

    Distinguish focus arriving from the keyboard from focus arriving from a click, and show the ring for keyboard and programmatic focus. A ring appearing on every mouse press reads as a rendering fault and invites someone to remove it entirely.

  3. 3

    Compose the ring so it stays visible on every surface the control can sit on: page background, card, coloured button, dark toolbar, selected row. A single-colour ring will disappear against at least one of them.

  4. 4

    Draw the ring in a way that does not change the element's box size, so focusing a control never nudges its neighbours.

  5. 5

    Do not strip the browser's default focus outline until the replacement is in place and verified on every control. A partial rollout leaves keyboard users with a set of invisible controls and no way to tell where they are.

Edge cases it handles

7
  • Applying the ring on every focus event rather than on keyboard focus makes it appear on mouse clicks, which is what leads teams to delete focus styling altogether.
  • A ring that reads well on the page background can vanish on a card, a coloured button, or a selected row — the treatment needs a contrasting outer edge or a surface-aware colour.
  • Rings drawn outside the element are clipped by any ancestor with hidden overflow, which is common in scrollable lists, tables, and toolbars; either inset the ring in those contexts or allow the overflow.
  • Removing the native outline before the replacement covers every control leaves gaps that are invisible until a keyboard user hits them.
  • The ring's colour per theme belongs to the theme tokens, including High-Contrast Theme; this feature owns the ring's geometry and its application rules, not its palette values.
  • Composite widgets such as menus, tab sets, and grids move focus within a single tab stop, so the ring must follow the active item rather than the wrapper.
  • Elements focused programmatically after a route change or a validation failure must show the ring, or the user is moved somewhere with no indication of where.

Definition of done

8
  • Every focusable element in the app shows the shared focus treatment.
  • The ring appears for keyboard and programmatic focus and not on ordinary mouse activation.
  • The ring is visible against every surface a focusable control sits on.
  • No ring is clipped by a scrollable or overflow-hidden ancestor.
  • Focusing an element does not change its size or move adjacent content.
  • No control anywhere relies on the removed native outline.
  • The feature matches the existing design system.
  • No existing functionality is broken.

Related features

How it works

  1. 1

    Copy the link

    Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.

  2. 2

    Give it to your AI

    Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.

  3. 3

    It inspects, then implements

    Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.

Works with your stack

These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.

Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.