react-doctor/tabindex-no-positive
Disallow positive tabIndex values, which override the natural tab order and make focus jump unpredictably.
- Status
- Active
- Category
- Accessibility
- Assessment
- Evidence-required risk
- Required evidence
- source code, rendered UI, accessibility audit
- Default configuration
- Enabled
- Default severity
- warn
Show technical metadata
- Scope
- All supported frameworks
- Active when
- always (unless customRulesOnly=true)
- Requirements
- react
- Tags
- react-jsx-only
- Priority
- 62 (P2)
- Source
- oxlint-plugin-react-doctor
- Rule set
- oxlint-plugin-react-doctor 0.9.3 (prompt schema 2)
- Documentation
- Official documentation
Validation prompt
Confirm the detector match and collect the required evidence before deciding whether an edit is warranted.
Fires when a tabIndex prop is a positive integer (1, 2, 3, ...) as a literal or string: tabIndex={0} (focusable in DOM order) and tabIndex={-1} (programmatically focusable only) are allowed. Positive values override the natural tab order and cause focus to jump unpredictably.
Suppress when: an intentional full-document tabindex map for a complex form: but even then, reordering DOM is preferred.
Evidence boundary
The diagnostic proves only that the detector’s modeled source pattern matched. It does not prove runtime impact, product intent, rendered failure, or that one remediation is correct.
Establish the environment, repository policy, exceptions, and required rendered or runtime evidence before deciding the occurrence.
Record one outcome:
- Confirmed failure: The required evidence establishes the violation.
- Rejected: A documented exception or false-positive predicate applies.
- Needs evidence: Named evidence can still be collected.
- Unavailable: Required evidence cannot be collected in this run.
- Waived with evidence: An authorized, scoped exception applies to an established failure.
- Observation: The review records an optional tradeoff without claiming a defect.
A waiver records its scope, authority, evidence, and review condition. It is not a pass or false positive.
Default severity is registry metadata. Use the occurrence’s JSON severity after repository configuration when ordering real findings.
Fix prompt
Apply this candidate correction only after the required evidence confirms the risk.
Replace positive tabIndex values with tabIndex={0} or tabIndex={-1} according to the element's focus semantics, then reorder the DOM so its natural sequence matches the visual and logical flow. Avoid flex-direction: row-reverse and CSS order when sequence matters: they change visual order while keyboard focus remains in DOM order. Mixing positive tabIndex with default values almost always produces an unpredictable sequence. See https://oxc.rs/docs/guide/usage/linter/rules/jsx_a11y/tabindex-no-positive
Repository-wide copy prompt
Use this repository-wide prompt only after validating each occurrence. For one occurrence, use the guidance above.
Show repository-wide prompt
Fix every confirmed react-doctor/tabindex-no-positive diagnostic in the current repository.
Required change:
- Replace positive tabIndex values with tabIndex={0} or tabIndex={-1} according to the element's focus semantics, then reorder the DOM so its natural sequence matches the visual and logical flow. Avoid flex-direction: row-reverse and CSS order when sequence matters: they change visual order while keyboard focus remains in DOM order. Mixing positive tabIndex with default values almost always produces an unpredictable sequence. See https://oxc.rs/docs/guide/usage/linter/rules/jsx_a11y/tabindex-no-positive.
Validation before editing:
Fires when a tabIndex prop is a positive integer (1, 2, 3, ...) as a literal or string: tabIndex={0} (focusable in DOM order) and tabIndex={-1} (programmatically focusable only) are allowed. Positive values override the natural tab order and cause focus to jump unpredictably.
Suppress when: an intentional full-document tabindex map for a complex form: but even then, reordering DOM is preferred.
Constraints:
- Make the smallest change that fixes the root cause.
- Preserve behavior and interfaces unrelated to this diagnostic.
- Reuse existing project components, utilities, and conventions.
- Do not introduce render-phase side effects, render-phase state updates, or Hooks rule violations.
- Preserve accessible names, focus order, keyboard behavior, and touch access not targeted by this rule.
- Adapt identifiers and framework details instead of copying blindly.
- Do not disable the rule or suppress matching code.
- Confirm this rule is enabled for the project:
always (unless customRulesOnly=true).
Assessment:
- Record detector evidence, applicability facts, assumptions, missing evidence, and the rule class for this occurrence.
- Return one outcome: Confirmed failure, Rejected, Needs evidence, Unavailable, Waived with evidence, or Observation.
- A waiver records the established failure, scope, authority, evidence, and review or expiry condition. It is not a pass or false positive.
Verification:
- Run focused tests for the changed behavior.
- Run React Doctor and confirm this diagnostic no longer appears from changed code.
- Run an unfiltered scan of the affected scope before claiming no cross-category regression.
- Report the files changed and any checks you could not run.