Figma is no longer a tool reserved for designers. With the introduction of Dev Mode, frontend engineers now have a streamlined way to extract design information efficiently. This article covers practical techniques for smoothing the bridge from Figma to code.

Getting Accurate Design Info with Dev Mode

Figma’s Dev Mode is a view optimized for developers. Toggle it on using the switch in the top-right corner of the file view, or hit Shift+D.

What You Can Do in Dev Mode

• Inspect properties: Click any element to see its width, height, padding, font size, colors, and more displayed in the properties panel.
• Auto-generated CSS: CSS properties appear automatically in the panel so you can copy them directly into your code.
• Export assets: Click an image icon to export it as SVG or PNG.

Keep in mind that the CSS shown in Dev Mode is a reference. You should adapt it to fit your actual component architecture.

Sharing Design Tokens for Consistency

Synchronizing design tokens like colors, font sizes, and spacing between Figma and your codebase prevents design drift.

The Figma Tokens Plugin

Tokens Studio for Figma (formerly Figma Tokens) is a plugin that lets you manage design tokens centrally as JSON.

1. Install the plugin and define tokens for colors, typography, and spacing.
2. Export as JSON.
3. Transform the JSON into Style Dictionary or Tailwind CSS config files.

{
  "color": {
    "brand": {
      "primary": { "value": "#3b82f6" },
      "secondary": { "value": "#10b981" }
    }
  },
  "spacing": {
    "md": { "value": "16px" }
  }
}

Feed this JSON into Style Dictionary and you can generate CSS custom properties, SCSS variables, Tailwind configs, and more.

Smooth Designer-to-Developer Handoff

Even with the best tooling, an efficient handoff requires alignment between designers and developers.

Standardize Component Naming

Matching Figma layer names to component names in code reduces hunting time. If a layer is called Button/Primary in Figma, name it ButtonPrimary or Button.Primary in code.

Use Auto Layout

Figma’s auto layout feature mirrors CSS Flexbox behavior. Ask designers to use auto layout so that spacing and alignment intentions translate directly into code.

Leave Comments in Figma

During development, questions like “What’s this padding value?” are best left as comments on the relevant Figma element. This is far more reliable than sending a Slack message.

Plugins Worth Installing

Summary

The most practical workflow for moving from Figma to code is to extract accurate design information via Dev Mode and share design tokens using Figma Tokens. Having a shared language between designers and developers — whether it’s tokens, naming conventions, or both — is the key to an efficient handoff process. Start with one or two of these techniques and build up from there.