Required Field Indicator
Make it obvious which fields must be filled in and which may be left alone.
What it adds
A consistent marking of required and optional fields across every form in the app.
What your agent is told to do
5
What your agent is told to do
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Count the required and optional fields across the app's forms and pick the convention that marks the minority — if most fields are required, mark the optional ones instead.
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Apply the chosen convention to every form without exception, and state the convention once at the top of each form so the marker means something to a first-time reader.
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Expose the requirement to assistive technology as well as visually, so the control itself reports that it is required rather than relying on a symbol beside the label.
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Recompute the marking when requirements change at runtime — a field that becomes mandatory once a plan or a country is selected must gain its marker and its announcement immediately.
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Do not mark a read-only, disabled, or system-populated field as required. It tells the user to act on something they cannot touch, and it makes the marker untrustworthy everywhere else.
Edge cases it handles
7
Edge cases it handles
7- A bare asterisk carries no meaning to a screen reader and is often skipped entirely; the requirement must be on the control, not only in the label's punctuation.
- The form-level legend explaining the convention must match what the fields actually do, and a form that mixes required-marking with optional-marking teaches the user nothing.
- Requirements that change mid-form must update the marker, the accessible state, and the validation rule together — a field that validates as required but shows no marker looks like a bug.
- A field that is required by the server but not marked in the interface produces an error the user could not have anticipated; the marking must reflect the actual validation.
- A field required only in one branch of a conditional flow must lose its marker when that branch is not active, rather than staying marked and blocking submission invisibly.
- The marker must not be conveyed by colour alone, and it must survive at compact density without colliding with a long label.
- How the marker is placed in the label and linked to the control is owned by Form Field Shell; this entry owns which fields are marked and what the convention is.
Definition of done
8
Definition of done
8- One convention — marking required or marking optional — is used across every form.
- Each form states its convention once, visibly.
- Requirements are exposed programmatically on the control, not only as a visual symbol.
- Marking matches the validation actually enforced on submission.
- Requirements that change at runtime update the marker and the accessible state together.
- Read-only, disabled, and system-populated fields are never marked required.
- The feature matches the existing design system.
- No existing functionality is broken.
Related features
Help Text Pattern
Help Text Pattern
Put field guidance in one predictable place, phrased the same way every time.
What it does
A consistent treatment for the short explanatory text that sits with a field and its control.
How it works
- 1 Collect the guidance the app currently scatters across placeholders, tooltips, asterisked footnotes, and modal help, and move it into one slot beneath the field.
- 2 Keep guidance that is required to complete the field permanently visible. A format rule hidden behind a hover target is not available to a touch user or a keyboard user.
- 3 Write help as the rule the user needs before typing — the accepted format, the consequence of the choice — not as a restatement of the label.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/help-text-pattern
Voice Dictation
Voice Dictation
Put a microphone in text fields so people can speak their input instead of typing it.
What it does
A dictation control on the app's longer text inputs that transcribes speech into the field as the user talks.
How it works
- 1 Add the control to the fields where typing is genuinely tedious: long descriptions, notes, comments, and message bodies. A microphone on a postcode field is clutter.
- 2 Show interim results in the field as they arrive, visually distinct from committed text, so the speaker can see it is working and correct course before they finish.
- 3 Reuse the app's existing Voice Transcription for the server-side path so one recognition configuration and one set of language settings serve both dictation and recorded audio.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/voice-dictation
Form Section Pattern
Form Section Pattern
Break long forms into labelled sections people can scan instead of read.
What it does
A section pattern grouping related fields under a heading, a description, and its own actions.
How it works
- 1 Find the forms that have grown past a screenful — settings, profiles, checkout, configuration — and group their fields by the question each group answers, not by the table the columns come from.
- 2 Give each section a heading in the document's heading order and an optional one-line description, so screen reader and keyboard users can jump between sections.
- 3 Allow at most one level of nesting. A section inside a section inside a tab gives the user no orientation and pushes the fields into a narrow gutter.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/form-section-pattern
How it works
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1
Copy the link
Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.
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Give it to your AI
Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.
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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.