One of the questions I got on yesterday's email is how do you defend your accessibility work when the blame game starts.
That's a really good question with an easy, albeit not simple, answer.
Three words. Keep your receipts.
Document everything you do. Link every accessibility fix to a specific ticket or issue. No ticket or issue? Create one first. For each ticket, note exactly what you touched and what you didn't. Keep before and after screenshots and record videos if you time allows.
This is where your git commits matter most. "Fixed stuff" doesn't cut it. "Added aria-label to navigation buttons" works much better when you have to track stuff down. Link these commits to the same tickets for easy reference. Then, when someone says "your changes broke checkout," you can pull up your commits and show you never went near that code.
Numbers matter just as much.
Did you reduce console errors? Improve test coverage? Hit WCAG compliance targets? Track those numbers and compare your changes to the scope of the entire release. Numbers shut down vague accusations fast.
In any case, don't wait for blame to get to you. Share what you fixed in release notes. Flag potential side effects upfront, even minor ones.
The truth is that sometimes you will break something. That's okay. Just own it quickly and move on.
Most of the time though, your accessibility fixes won't be the cause of an outage.
Keep your receipts. You might just need them.