Design Tokens

design-tokens

Token authoring skill: the 3-layer DTCG model (primitive → semantic → component) with light/dark theming, a TypeScript toolchain (scripts/tokens.ts — generate / validate / embed, run via ./scripts-run), and a starter template. Selection of which token values fit the product comes grounded from design-intelligence (WCAG-adjusted color sets, typography pairings); this skill turns the selection into a maintained token system.

Toolchain provenance: port of the upstream .cjs trio (generate-tokens, validate-tokens, embed-tokens) from nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill design-system sub-skill @ b7e3af80f6e331f6fb456667b82b12cade7c9d35 (MIT, last checked 2026-06-07); the HTML surface of upstream's html-token-validator.py is folded into validate so there is exactly one token-discipline linter. Obligations: design-intelligence/ATTRIBUTION.md.

When to use

• A project needs a token system (new design system, theme overhaul, dark-mode introduction).
• Hardcoded hex/px/rem values keep leaking into components — wire the validate linter into review/polish.
• The design brief landed WCAG-checked values that must become maintainable CSS variables / Tailwind theme entries.

The 3-layer model

Rules: components never reference primitives directly; dark mode lives under dark.semantic.* overriding the same semantic names (emitted as a .dark { … } block); every value is a {"$value": …, "$type": …} pair (DTCG). Start from the bundled starter template.

Toolchain (scripts/tokens.ts — skill-relative, any cwd)

# tokens.json → CSS variables (primitives + semantic + components + .dark)
./scripts-run <skills-root>/design-tokens/scripts/tokens generate \
  --config tokens.json -o assets/design-tokens.css

# tokens.json → Tailwind theme.extend.colors snippet
./scripts-run …/tokens generate --config tokens.json --format tailwind

# token-discipline lint: hardcoded hex/rgb/px/rem outside token files
./scripts-run …/tokens validate --dir src/ [--json]

# embeddable inline CSS for standalone HTML artifacts
./scripts-run …/tokens embed --tokens assets/design-tokens.css --minimal --style

validate --json emits findings with "kind": "token_violation" — the exact finding kind the UI directive set's polish step auto-converts against state.ui_audit.design_tokens. Wire it into review/polish runs: scan the changed files, append the findings to state.ui_review.findings, and let the polish round fix them (var(--token) over hardcoded hex — the validation rule the council's four-operation split assigns to rules/linters, not the corpus).

Set artifact_covered: true on a finding whose value traces to a provided design artifact. Without it the polish round edits AWAY from the artifact: polish.ts::partition_artifact_covered drops flagged findings and treats every unmarked one as actionable, and this path appended token_violation findings without the flag — so a hex the handover states was converted to a project token by a loop nobody asked. The flag is per finding, not per run: a hardcoded hex the artifact never mentioned stays actionable and is still fixed. Marking is not suppression — the finding stays in the report as informational, so a reader still sees that the spec carries a value the token system does not. (AI council 2026-09-09 on blocker: findings-actionability-default, option (b): one call site, no package-wide default changed. Reopens if a second artifact-derived finding path reaches the loop without provenance — recurrence would argue for carrying provenance in the finding TYPE rather than at a third call site.)

Procedure

1. Inspect the existing styling surface — detect the stack (Tailwind config, global CSS, component conventions) and survey current hard-coded values, so the token set covers what the codebase actually uses.
2. Ground the values — design-intelligence query gives the WCAG-checked semantic color set + typography pairing for the product. No brand and no corpus match (a genuinely from-scratch palette) → derive the accent set in oklch() with shared lightness and chroma, varied hue (oklch(50% 0.15 250) / … 200 / … 280) — equal L/C keeps the hues perceptually balanced where random hex codes drift in saturation; cross-check the result against C1/C5 avoidance before locking it in.
3. Author tokens.json from the starter: fill primitives, point semantics at them, add dark.semantic overrides.
4. Generate CSS vars (and the Tailwind snippet when the stack is Tailwind — see tailwind-engineer).
5. Validate the codebase; convert violations to var(--token).
6. Re-run validate until clean — exit code 0 is the evidence.

Output format

1. tokens.json (DTCG, 3 layers + dark.semantic).
2. Generated design-tokens.css (+ Tailwind theme.extend.colors snippet when the stack is Tailwind).
3. validate report — exit 0 evidence, or the violations list handed to the polish round as token_violation findings.

Security constraints

scripts/tokens.ts is the only shipped script.

• What it may touch — the tokens.json config path it is given, the directory it is asked to validate, and the --output path it is asked to write. Nothing outside the paths named on the command line.
• What it must never do — reach the network, spawn a subprocess, or write to a path the caller did not name. It never edits the generated CSS it produced earlier; regeneration replaces, it does not patch.
• Default invocation — read-only. generate prints to stdout unless --output PATH is passed; --output is the flag that makes it mutating, and it creates only that file's parent directory. validate never writes.
• Outbound — nothing. No network access.

Do NOT

• Do NOT hand-edit generated CSS — tokens.json is the single source.
• Do NOT let components reference primitives directly — semantic layer in between, always.
• Do NOT auto-fix validate findings blindly — #000/#fff and runtime-computed values are legitimate; review each.
• Do NOT port the brand→token pipeline without the watch-note trigger (deferred per council).

Gotchas

• validate intentionally skips #000/#fff(+6-digit forms), values on lines already using var(--…), comments, token-definition files, and known external asset hosts — review its output, don't blindly allowlist.
• Brand→token sync (brand-guidelines.md → scale generation) is deferred per council 2026-06-07 (fork D2) — watch note: agents/settings/contexts/domain-watch/brand-token-pipeline.md.
• Keep tokens.json the single source; never hand-edit the generated CSS.

See also

• design-canon.md § Colour references — a11y-contrast + culturally-specific palettes + named-system token models.
• design-intelligence — grounded value selection.
• tailwind-engineer — utility-discipline consumer.
• react-shadcn-ui — shadcn token conventions.
• docs/guidelines/design-antipatterns.md — when authoring the colour layer, avoid the C5 cream/sand default palette (OKLCH L 0.84–0.97, C < 0.06) and C1 purple/violet primaries unless the brand explicitly defines them; the brand-consistency rule validates emitted tokens against the active brand profile.