The tags models never reach for

Run the trap first. Ask your model for an accordion, a modal dialog, and an input with suggestions. Save what it gives you. You will compare against it in a moment.

Now build each one natively. <details> and <summary> are an accordion with open and closed state, keyboard support and correct announcement, in two tags and no script. <dialog> with showModal() is a modal with a backdrop, focus trapping, escape-to-close and inertness of the page behind it, one method call. <input list> with a <datalist> is an autocomplete that works on every browser and needs no library.

Then the others, each of which replaces something people write by hand every week. <output> is a live region for a calculated result and announces changes without you configuring anything. <progress> and <meter> are a loading bar and a gauge, and they are different elements for a reason, one is a task completing, the other is a measurement within a range. <time datetime="2026-09-14"> is a machine-readable date. <figure> and <figcaption> bind a caption to an image so the relationship survives being read aloud. <fieldset> and <legend> group related inputs so a screen reader announces "Shipping address, street" rather than just "street".

Build a single page containing all eight, working, with no JavaScript beyond the one showModal() call. Then open it with a screen reader and confirm each one announces sensibly.

Now be honest about the limits, because this chapter is not "native elements always win". <details> cannot animate its open transition in every browser without work. <dialog> styling of the backdrop is a pseudo-element with its own quirks. <datalist> looks different on every platform and you cannot style the dropdown. For a design system with exacting visual requirements, some of these really will not do, and the right time to discover that is after you have used them, not instead of.

Write a short comparison in your repo: for each of the three widgets your model produced, the native version, the lines of code saved, and the one thing the native version cannot do. That document is the clearer version of this lesson and it is worth more than either extreme position.