Add the birth certificate amendment form for MA by deammer · Pull Request #656 · namesakefyi/namesake

deammer · 2026-06-23T18:26:37Z

Changes:

uploaded and implemented the R-116 form
added support for filling out PDFRadioGroups in the PDF exports
added e2e and schema tests

Notes:

I ran into a few weird things, please let me know how you'd like to proceed:

Situation	Screenshot
the form has a weird field called "Contact information" that doesn't really make sense so I ignored it
can we make middle names optional? I didn't see a canonical way to do that but maybe I missed it.
in the exported PDF, the 2 checkboxes are misalinged (I'm using Waterfox 6.6.15). It's misaligned in a way that makes it look like the wrong box is checked...

Implements #647. No genAI was used in the process 💅

deammer · 2026-06-23T21:10:12Z

@kydecker this is ready for review! I also added 3 questions/notes to the PR description. Would love to hear your thoughts 🙏

By the way the PDF uploading tool is reaaaally fucking cool, great work to everyone who contributed to that. The only issue I ran into is that it flagged a radio group as a textfield but that was easy to fix in the schema.

kydecker · 2026-06-23T23:58:07Z

@deammer Thank you for the contribution!! I'm busy tonight but I will take some time to review this and answer your questions tomorrow.

kydecker

Thank you so much for kicking this off!

I suggested a handful of copy edits below.

In response to your questions:

the form has a weird field called "Contact information" that doesn't really make sense so I ignored it

Yup, totally fine to just exclude this. There are weird elements in some of these PDF forms.

can we make middle names optional? I didn't see a canonical way to do that but maybe I missed it.

The "missing!" highlights are a little rough around the edges right now for things like this (where a field is displayed but intentionally left blank). Don't worry about it for now.

in the exported PDF, the 2 checkboxes are misalinged (I'm using Waterfox 6.6.15). It's misaligned in a way that makes it look like the wrong box is checked...

Oh, bummer, We need to manually move those fields into the correct position. It's possible to do this with pdf-lib, and probably a feature we could build into the PDF Manager... in the meantime, you could try uploading the PDF to the BentoPDF Form Creator, repositioning the fields, and saving the updated PDF.

Finally, I filed an issue to fix the RadioGroup detection in the PDF Manager: #659

It should be a pretty easy fix if you want to bundle it with this PR, otherwise we can tackle it separately!

Thanks again!

Take Ky's suggestions Co-authored-by: Ky Decker <hi@ky.fyi>

deammer · 2026-06-24T19:51:46Z

@kydecker thank you for the review! I've made all the updates you requested + updated deriveCurrentAge to default to 0 instead of undefined.

Gonna try to fix up the placement of the checkboxes on the form now.

deammer · 2026-06-24T20:22:13Z

Fun fact: BentoPDF only works in Chromium browsers. Thanks, Vivaldi 🙏

I fixed the checkboxes:

kydecker

Nice, looking good! I tested the flow and things are working well.

I have a few more content edits, and one thought about potentially removing the supporting documents step. Curious to hear your thoughts!

kydecker · 2026-06-24T20:59:24Z

This step feels kind of odd to me. As a user, it's confusing to understand. I'm tempted to say we should see if we can a) relocate the checkboxes elsewhere, or b) get rid of this step entirely and infer responses.

The court order/name change decree is required if the applicant is updating their name in addition to the gender marker. So as long as there is a new name different from the old name, this box can be checked, and we can display a notice (in the instructions, and in the guide itself) instructing them to bring their name change decree with them when filing for the updated birth certificate.

Additionally, we should probably have some sort of check to verify that the birth gender and updated gender are different. If they are the same, Massachusetts doesn't allow users to amend their birth certificate—we could display a banner informing the user about this.

For the "I am including a check or money order"... I'm not really sure why the user needs to check this manually. I guess the only reason you would not check it is if you were filing the Affidavit of Indigency along with this form? In which case, it would be more user-friendly to simply ask, "Do you need to waive fees?" If yes, we can include the Affidavit of Indigency, and if no, we let them know the costs and accepted payment methods, and automatically check the checkbox on the form.

kydecker · 2026-06-24T21:07:13Z

+    birthNameStep,
+    birthGenderStep,
+    dateOfBirthStep,
+    birthTownStep,
+    parentNamesStep,
+    // Section: Name and Sex to appear on amended birth certificate
+    newNameStep,
+    newGenderStep,
+    mailingAddressStep,
+    contactInfoStep,
+    // Section: Applicant affidavit
+    supportingDocumentsStep,
+    // Section: For subjects under 18 years of age
+    guardianAuthorizationStep,


Suggested change

birthNameStep,

birthGenderStep,

dateOfBirthStep,

birthTownStep,

parentNamesStep,

// Section: Name and Sex to appear on amended birth certificate

newNameStep,

newGenderStep,

mailingAddressStep,

contactInfoStep,

// Section: Applicant affidavit

supportingDocumentsStep,

// Section: For subjects under 18 years of age

guardianAuthorizationStep,

birthGenderStep,

newGenderStep,

birthNameStep,

newNameStep,

dateOfBirthStep,

birthTownStep,

parentNamesStep,

mailingAddressStep,

contactInfoStep,

// Section: Applicant affidavit

supportingDocumentsStep,

// Section: For subjects under 18 years of age

guardianAuthorizationStep,

Some thoughts about step ordering: can we put the gender steps and name steps next to one another, and put the gender steps first, to warn the user if they choose the same option for both?

kydecker · 2026-06-24T21:10:31Z

  },
+  {
+    name: "oldGender",
+    label: "Current documented gender",


Suggested change

label: "Current documented gender",

label: "Existing gender marker",

kydecker · 2026-06-24T21:11:17Z

+  },
+  {
+    name: "newGender",
+    label: "Desired gender",


Suggested change

label: "Desired gender",

label: "Desired gender marker",

kydecker · 2026-06-24T21:13:05Z

+  title: "Parent or guardian authorization",
+  description:
+    "At least one parent or guardian must authorize this change if you are under 18 years old.",


Suggested change

title: "Parent or guardian authorization",

description:

"At least one parent or guardian must authorize this change if you are under 18 years old.",

title: "Parent or guardian authorization",

description:

"Since you are under 18 years old, at least one parent or guardian must authorize this change.",

kydecker · 2026-06-24T21:15:43Z

+          label="Parent or guardian 1's full name"
+          name="guardianOneFullName"
+          size={24}
+          isRequired


Suggested change

isRequired

Ah, we actually need to remove this. We currently don't enforce fields being filled out at any point in the flow, and don't have any logic setup to handle displaying errors for required fields.

The logic is that we want people to be able to skip any fields they are uncomfortable with filling out (or unable to fill out) so that they can do it after printing.

deammer added 5 commits June 23, 2026 17:32

Add the MA R-116 form PDF

c1090d1

Create the form steps

93764e3

e2e tests + support for radio groups

16ac4c5

Oops case-sensitivity is a hate crime

bb2ece9

Updated the tests to support PDFRadioGroup

c9f8a33

deammer marked this pull request as ready for review June 23, 2026 21:08

kydecker reviewed Jun 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

nnhhoang mentioned this pull request Jun 24, 2026

fix(pdf-manager): detect PDFRadioGroup fields instead of classifying as text #660

Merged

deammer and others added 3 commits June 24, 2026 21:43

Apply suggestions from code review

1631b66

Take Ky's suggestions Co-authored-by: Ky Decker <hi@ky.fyi>

More copy tweaks as suggested by Ky

9151c85

deriveCurrentAge defaults to 0

49d59ee

deammer added 2 commits June 24, 2026 21:52

Aaah linter

81ff27c

Fixed the checkboxes on the PDF

1b62a41

Fixed the e2e test

05b4116

kydecker reviewed Jun 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

	label: "Current documented gender",
	label: "Existing gender marker",

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deammer commented Jun 23, 2026 •

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