Design token generation

Design Token Generation Strategy

Scan an existing design to discover all unique colors, font sizes, spacing values, and radii, then create a structured variable collection and named styles, and finally link nodes to them.

Steps

Phase 1: Discovery

1. Call get_styles() to check what styles already exist (avoid duplicating them).
2. Call get_variable_defs() to check existing variables.
3. Call get_design_context(detail="compact") to scan the full node tree.
4. Collect unique values:
   • Colors: all unique hex fills and stroke colors across nodes.
   • Font sizes: all unique fontSize values on TEXT nodes.
   • Spacing: all unique itemSpacing, paddingTop/Right/Bottom/Left values on FRAME nodes.
   • Radii: all unique cornerRadius values.

Phase 2: Token naming

Map discovered values to semantic token names. Use this hierarchy:

Colors (variable collection "Primitives"):

• Sort colors by hue/lightness.
• Assign names like "Blue/100", "Blue/200", ... "Blue/900", "Neutral/50", "Neutral/900", etc.
• Also create a "Semantic" collection with aliases: "Color/Primary", "Color/Background", "Color/Text", etc.

Spacing (variable collection "Spacing"):

• Name by scale: "Spacing/0" (0), "Spacing/1" (4px), "Spacing/2" (8px), "Spacing/3" (12px), ...

Radius (variable collection "Radius"):

• Name: "Radius/None" (0), "Radius/SM" (4), "Radius/MD" (8), "Radius/LG" (16), "Radius/Full" (9999)

Typography (local text styles):

• Name: "Heading/H1", "Heading/H2", "Body/Regular", "Body/Small", "Label/Medium", etc.

Present the full token plan to the user for approval before creating anything.

Phase 3: Creation

For each approved token:

• COLOR variables: create_variable_collection(), then create_variable(type="COLOR"), then set_variable_value()
• FLOAT variables: create_variable_collection(), then create_variable(type="FLOAT"), then set_variable_value()
• Text styles: create_text_style() with name, fontFamily, fontSize, lineHeight, letterSpacing
• Paint styles: create_paint_style() with name, color

Phase 4: Linking (optional, ask user)

After creating tokens, offer to link existing nodes:

• For nodes with raw fill colors that match a new variable: bind_variable_to_node(field="fillColor")
• For TEXT nodes with matching font styles: apply_style_to_node(styleId)

Multi-mode / Theming (Light & Dark)

Paid plan (Professional / Organization / Enterprise)

Use Figma's native multi-mode variables:

1. create_variable_collection() creates the collection with one default mode (e.g. "Light").
2. add_variable_mode() adds the second mode (e.g. "Dark").
3. create_variable() creates each variable once; it exists in all modes automatically.
4. set_variable_value() is called once per mode: first the Light value, then the Dark value.

Free plan workaround (when add_variable_mode returns "Limited to 1 modes only")

Figma's free plan is capped at 1 mode per collection. Detect this error and fall back to name-encoded modes: keep a single collection with 1 mode, and prefix every variable name with the mode it belongs to.

Naming convention: use a slash-prefix per mode:

• light/color-bg, dark/color-bg
• light/color-text, dark/color-text
• light/color-primary, dark/color-primary

Steps:

1. create_variable_collection(): one collection, accept the single default mode as-is.
2. create_variable(name="light/<token>") for the Light variant.
3. create_variable(name="dark/<token>") for the Dark variant.
4. set_variable_value() for each variable.

Bind the active-theme variable to nodes (e.g. bind the "light/color-bg" variable for light theme). When the user wants to switch to dark, rebind nodes to the corresponding "dark/*" variable. Inform the user that native mode-switching requires a paid Figma plan; with this workaround they manually choose which prefixed variable to bind.

Rules

• Never delete or overwrite existing styles/variables; only add new ones.
• Prefer variables over paint styles for colors that will need dark-mode variants.
• Always get user approval on the token plan (Phase 2) before executing Phase 3.
• Process in batches of 20 during linking phase.
• Detect the free-plan mode limit at runtime: if add_variable_mode fails with "Limited to 1 modes only", switch to the name-encoded workaround automatically and inform the user.