A new UI Collective video on design systems and AI. Three ideas are worth keeping, and one point is worth disagreeing with.
Three ideas worth keeping
First, document the rules for choosing between similar components, and the technical debt you've knowingly taken on: neither one is readable in the Figma file.
Next, split the documentation by component group, otherwise the model follows the nesting and forgets half the library.
And don't over-specify typography. Rules that are too strict push the model to invent sizes outside the scale, whereas exposing the scale without usage guidelines gives better results.
Where I disagree: maintenance
The skills are generated in one shot from Figma with a Claude prompt, and six weeks later the design system has moved on while they still describe a system that no longer exists. The agent can't tell the difference: it dutifully applies outdated documentation.
What I'm putting in place
Two pieces. The design system data goes into dated reference files, in .md or .yaml, and the skills no longer store any values: they read from that source, which makes them reusable on any design system.
All of it on a shared MCP server rather than on everyone's own machine, otherwise two designers run the same prompt and get two different screens, and no one can say which one is authoritative.