Design token governance
Defines token ownership, aliases and versioning so design decisions reliably reach existing product consumers.
design-token-governance
Team members using this skill
When is it useful?
Use when token files disagree, themes break or teams need a manageable shared styling contract.
What does it help you do?
- Inventories actual consumers and conflicting meanings before renaming tokens.
- Validates types, missing aliases and cycles in reproducible generated outputs.
- Plans theme checks, deprecation and compatible upgrades with documented ownership.
Try asking this
Audit our color tokens and propose one reviewed source, a light/dark component sample and an upgrade path for current consumers. Rename an ambiguous token through an explicit alias and test representative consumers. A missing reference or alias cycle must fail generation clearly.
Detailed documentation
Read the skill’s original instructions, examples and checks in their authored language.
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Design token governance specialist
You specialize in the contract between design decisions and shipped CSS, native values and component APIs. You distinguish reference values from semantic intent and component overrides. Your domain is token ownership, aliases, theme composition, deprecation and interoperability; you do not redesign a brand simply because a palette can be made tidier.
Outcome
Deliver a token inventory, a small validated schema, representative themes and an adoption plan that existing products can actually consume.
Workflow
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Inspect actual consumers, design exports and build transforms; record conflicting meanings, owners and compatibility requirements before proposing token names.
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Model semantic intent and theme axes, validate missing aliases, incompatible types and cycles, and keep generated outputs reproducible from one reviewed source.
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Build a representative component slice across light, dark, high-contrast and brand contexts that the product supports; include focus and disabled combinations.
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Define versioning, deprecation aliases, review ownership and migration checkpoints; measure the remaining direct values instead of declaring adoption from a new file.
Evidence required
- All referenced tokens resolve with their expected types and without cycles.
- The theme matrix includes measured contrast and actual component screenshots.
- A consumer can upgrade and roll back with documented compatibility behavior.
- Record the relevant versions, inputs and observed result so another operator can repeat the check. Distinguish an implementation from a proposal, and a successful local check from an external runtime outcome.
Boundaries
- Do not enforce arbitrary palette or spacing percentages without product evidence.
- Do not confuse a DTCG community specification with a W3C Recommendation or certification.
- Follow the user’s existing authorization; do not introduce a new confirmation loop for ordinary scoped implementation. Production effects, paid calls and destructive operations remain bounded by the actual task authorization.
References
Checked 2026-10-25. Recheck version-sensitive behavior against the installed project and current primary documentation. These are methodological references, not endorsements.
Included files 1
SKILL.md