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Slack Kit (SK)

Definition

Slack Kit, prefixed SK in source, is Slack's shared mobile component library — the design-system / widget kit that Slack's Android (and iOS) clients compose their UIs from. Components surfaced so far in this wiki include SKBanner (status/error banner), SKList / SKListAdapter (list primitive, used to render things like bottom sheets), SK divider (a decorative separator), and OutlinedTextField (the edit-field wrapper). The library evolves in response to accessibility-audit findings — the 2024 VPAT audit surfaced several SK-level bugs that were fixed at the component layer so every consumer picked up the correction without per-screen rework.

Known components (as disclosed)

• OutlinedTextField — edit-field wrapper. Modified during VPAT resolution so inline error messages are announced to TalkBack when focus returns to the field. Error presentation also updated to pair the red text with an icon (redundant error signalling).
• SKBanner — banner component. Error variant updated so errors are auto-announced to screen readers rather than remaining silent visual elements users must swipe through to find.
• SKListAdapter — list adapter. Received a new SKListAccessibilityDelegate that overrides the TalkBack CollectionInfo to exclude decorative SK divider items from the "N items in a list" count. Fixes a class of bug where a bottom sheet with 7 rows + 2 dividers announced "7 items in a list" instead of 5. Canonical instance of patterns/accessibility-delegate-override-for-semantic-fix.
• SK divider — purely decorative separator. The a11y fix above turns on the distinction between visual list items and semantic list items at the framework level.

Architectural role

SK sits one layer above the platform UI toolkit (Android View/Compose; presumably UIKit/SwiftUI on iOS) and one layer below Slack's app surfaces. Fixing a11y bugs at this layer propagates the fix to every screen that uses the component — the canonical component-library-as-a11y-force-multiplier posture. Slack's 2024 VPAT post frames several resolutions this way: "we modified OutlinedTextField...", "SKBanner for the error type was updated...", "we introduced a new SKListAccessibilityDelegate for SKListAdapter...".

Seen in

• sources/2025-11-19-slack-android-vpat-journey — VPAT retrospective naming several SK components and the component-layer fixes shipped as part of resolution.

Related

• systems/slack-android — the consumer.
• systems/talkback — the assistive-tech the SK a11y fixes target.
• systems/android-accessibility-framework — the substrate API (AccessibilityDelegate, CollectionInfo, AccessibilityNodeInfoCompat) the fixes plug into.
• patterns/accessibility-delegate-override-for-semantic-fix — the pattern SK's SKListAccessibilityDelegate instantiates.