Design Systems for Agents

Tokens, not vibes

A design system is the machine-readable contract for your visual identity. Colors, type, spacing, and rules, written as values an agent can read, not adjectives it has to guess.

What humans see

"Warm terracotta. Clean sans. Generous spacing. A confident, grown-up feel."

Useful for a brand deck. Useless for a build.

What an agent needs

The same brand, written as ground truth. Every value is named, every name is stable, nothing is inferred.

--color-primary: #D97757;
--color-text: #1F1E1D;
--font-display: "Styrene B";
--space-4: 16px;
--radius-sm: 4px;

The shift. You stop describing your brand to Claude and start handing Claude a file it can look values up in.

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