E0d/fix actionrow a11y

[e0d]

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Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 94.40%. Comparing base (51702d5) to head (c15a33d).

Additional details and impacted files

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##           release-23.x    #4270   +/-   ##
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  Coverage         94.40%   94.40%           
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  Files               242      242           
  Lines              4309     4309           
  Branches           1020     1021    +1     
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  Hits               4068     4068           
+ Misses              237      233    -4     
- Partials              4        8    +4     

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[brian-smith-tcril]

The commit message on 5f41035 says

fix(ActionRow): add fallback values to spacing tokens

Without fallbacks, both gap tokens resolve to 0 if design tokens are
not compiled and loaded, collapsing actions flush with no visual
separation. .5rem matches the intent of the token and maintains
grouping cues for cognitive accessibility (WCAG 1.4.12 advisory).

Without values from tokens nothing in Paragon would be WCAG compliant. Paragon ships with these defined.

Using fallbacks here puts us in a position of needing to update this in 2 places (both the default in the token json, and the fallback here) if we want to make a change.

I also fed Claude this comment and got:

Your reasoning checks out, and there's a sharper point you can make using prior art in the repo.

Token IS defined with the same value:

• tokens/src/core/components/ActionRow.json:6-7 — both gap tokens default to .5rem
• styles/css/core/variables.css:150-151 — compiles to --pgn-spacing-action-row-gap-x: 0.5rem

So the PR's var(..., .5rem) is literally duplicating the value that already ships, which is your dual-source-of-truth concern.

Existing fallback patterns in Paragon are different:

There are 28 fallbacks across Button/Alert/Badge/PageBanner/Bubble, but a spot-check shows they're all for tokens that don't have a base value in variables.css — variant/state-scoped tokens like --pgn-btn-bg, --pgn-alert-border-color, --pgn-badge-focus-bg. Those tokens are only set inside .btn-primary { ... }, etc., and the fallback represents the unset/default state.

--pgn-spacing-action-row-gap-x is fundamentally different: it's a base token with a shipped value. Adding a fallback here would be the first instance in this directory of a fallback duplicating a base-token value — i.e., it diverges from the established pattern, not aligns with it.

On the WCAG framing: if "tokens not loaded" is the failure mode being defended against, every Paragon component fails — spacing, typography, color contrast, focus rings. Patching one component's gap doesn't materially improve the no-tokens experience; it just creates a maintenance trap for that one component.

[e0d]

I've rebased and dropped the commit. I'm not sure why Claude created the branch from the release branch rather than master.