Figma Just Made Your Design System Debt Everyone's Problem

What it is — Resolved via search — verify before relying on it. Figma’s new “Check designs” tool scores a file against your design system and surfaces every drift — hard-coded values, failed contrast, detached components — turning design-system debt from an abstract complaint into a visible number.

Key points

• A visible drift count gives design system work leverage in reviews it used to lose quietly.
• Within days of launch, designers found it flags intentional exceptions (annotation colors, dev notes, disabled states) as violations, with no way to mark them as deliberate.
• The count is leverage, not a strategy — someone still has to separate real signal from false positives.