Keep an Accessible Combobox Stable When Search Results Arrive Out of Order

Short summary

An accessible combobox can follow correct ARIA patterns yet break when async search responses arrive out of order, leaving aria-activedescendant pointing to a non-existent option. The author models request generation with a counter to discard stale responses and handles IME composition by blocking requests until compositionend. Playwright tests should assert focus stability, active-descendant resolution, and Escape invalidation of outstanding generations.

• •Use a generation counter to discard stale async search responses in comboboxes
• •Block search requests during IME composition until compositionend fires
• •Test ARIA combobox contracts under asynchronous replacement, not just static data

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