Ship tokens before you ship a button

Buttons multiply. Tokens do not — if you name them by role instead of by hex. We publish a JSON file the codebase can import on day one, before anyone draws a hero section.

Dark mode is a weekend project only when color is paint. When color is role — accent, muted, danger, surface — switching theme is a map, not a scavenger hunt.

Role, not paint

If a designer needs a new hex, they need a new role — or they are decorating. We reject one-off colors in review the same way we reject one-off magic numbers in code.

Spacing and type follow the same rule. A scale of eight, a type ramp with names, and no 'make it 13px because it looked tight in Figma'.

Ship the file

Tokens live in git. Design tools consume them, or they are downstream. The other way around is how production and Figma divorce.

Ship tokens before you ship a button, and the button will have somewhere honest to live.