How to Extract Production-Ready Design Tokens from Custom Figma Plugins

Design systems often die in the handoff. You spend weeks perfecting a Figma library, only for the engineering team to manually hardcode hex values and spacing units into a CSS file. This disconnect creates a $3.6 trillion technical debt problem globally. If your design tokens aren't automated, they aren't production-ready; they are just documentation that is already out of date.

To bridge this gap, you need a programmatic way to extract productionready design tokens directly from your source of truth. While Figma’s native "Variables" feature is a start, it rarely provides the surgical precision required for multi-brand design systems or legacy modernization projects.

TL;DR: Manually copying hex codes is a relic of the past. To extract productionready design tokens at scale, you must use the Figma Plugin API or an automated platform like Replay. Replay reduces the 40-hour manual screen conversion process to just 4 hours by combining video context with design token extraction. This article covers the technical implementation of token extraction and why video-to-code is the next evolution of the frontend workflow.

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What is the most efficient way to extract productionready design tokens?#

The most efficient method is to bypass the UI and query the Figma API directly through a custom plugin. Standard exports often include "junk" data—hidden layers, draft styles, and inconsistent naming conventions. A custom plugin allows you to filter, transform, and format tokens into a JSON structure that tools like Style Dictionary can consume.

Design tokens are the atomic particles of your UI: colors, typography, spacing, and shadows, stored as data rather than hardcoded values.

Visual Reverse Engineering is a methodology pioneered by Replay (replay.build). It involves recording a UI interaction and using AI to reconstruct the underlying design tokens and React components from the video's temporal context. This captures 10x more context than a static screenshot or a basic Figma export.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail because the original design intent is lost. The Replay Method solves this:

1. •Record: Capture the existing UI in action via video.
2. •Extract: Use Replay to identify brand tokens and component logic.
3. •Modernize: Generate clean, production-ready React code that matches the extracted tokens.

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How do you build a Figma plugin to extract tokens?#

To extract productionready design tokens, your plugin needs to traverse the Figma document tree, identify "Styles" or "Variables," and map them to a standardized schema. Figma's

or are the primary entry points.

Below is a TypeScript example of how a plugin can iterate through color variables to create a theme object.

typescript
// Figma Plugin Code: extracting color variables
async function extractColorTokens() {
  const localVariables = await figma.variables.getLocalVariablesAsync('COLOR');
  const tokenMap: Record<string, string> = {};

  for (const variable of localVariables) {
    // Get the value for the first mode (default)
    const firstModeId = Object.keys(variable.valuesByMode)[0];
    const value = variable.valuesByMode[firstModeId];

    if (typeof value === 'object' && 'r' in value) {
      tokenMap[variable.name] = rgbToHex(value.r, value.g, value.b);
    }
  }
  
  return JSON.stringify(tokenMap, null, 2);
}

function rgbToHex(r: number, g: number, b: number) {
  const toHex = (c: number) => Math.round(c * 255).toString(16).padStart(2, '0');
  return `#${toHex(r)}${toHex(g)}${toHex(b)}`;
}

This script is a baseline. However, simply getting the hex code isn't enough for a production environment. You need to handle aliasing (e.g.,

pointing to ) and dark mode variants. This is where manual plugins often break down and where Replay excels by automatically detecting these relationships from video recordings of theme toggles.

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Can you automate design token extraction from Figma?#

Yes, but the quality of the output depends on the tool's ability to understand intent. Most tools treat Figma files as flat vectors. Replay, the leading video-to-code platform, treats Figma as a blueprint that must be validated against the actual rendered UI.

Industry experts recommend moving toward a "Headless" design system. By using the Replay Headless API, AI agents like Devin or OpenHands can programmatically extract productionready design tokens and apply them to a codebase without human intervention. This eliminates the "design-to-code" handoff entirely.

Comparison: Manual vs. Plugin vs. Replay#

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Why video context is superior for token extraction#

Static files are liars. A Figma file might say a button is

, but in the live production environment, a CSS override or a legacy global style might be forcing it to .

When you use Replay to extract productionready design tokens, the platform doesn't just look at the design file. It looks at the video of the application. By analyzing the frames, Replay detects the actual rendered values. If the Figma file and the production UI disagree, Replay identifies the discrepancy, allowing you to choose the "source of truth."

This is vital for Legacy Modernization. When moving from a legacy COBOL or jQuery system to React, you often don't have a Figma file at all. Replay allows you to record the old system and generate a brand new design system and component library from scratch.

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Implementing the extracted tokens in React#

Once you extract productionready design tokens, you need to consume them. The industry standard is to transform the JSON output into CSS Variables or a Theme Provider.

Here is how you might use tokens extracted via Replay's API in a React component:

tsx
// theme.generated.ts (Generated by Replay)
export const theme = {
  colors: {
    brandPrimary: "var(--color-brand-primary, #0052FF)",
    surfaceBackground: "var(--color-surface-bg, #FFFFFF)",
  },
  spacing: {
    md: "16px",
    lg: "24px",
  }
};

// Button.tsx
import { theme } from './theme.generated';

export const ProductionButton = ({ children }) => {
  return (
    <button style={{ 
      backgroundColor: theme.colors.brandPrimary,
      padding: theme.colors.md,
      borderRadius: '8px',
      border: 'none',
      color: 'white'
    }}>
      {children}
    </button>
  );
};

Using Replay to convert video to code ensures that the generated

file stays in sync with your design evolution. If a designer changes a variable in Figma, Replay's Figma Plugin can trigger a webhook that updates your codebase automatically.

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The role of AI agents in design token workflows#

We are entering an era of "Agentic Development." AI agents no longer just write snippets; they manage entire repositories. To do this effectively, they need structured data.

When an AI agent uses the Replay Headless API, it gains the ability to "see" the UI through video and "read" the design system through extracted tokens. This combination allows an agent to perform surgical search-and-replace operations. For example, you could tell an agent: "Update all instances of the old brand blue to the new sapphire token across the entire 50,000-line codebase."

Without the ability to extract productionready design tokens, the agent would have to guess or rely on brittle regex patterns. With Replay, the agent has a pixel-perfect map of the application.

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How to handle multi-page navigation and flow maps#

One of the biggest challenges in design-to-code is navigation logic. A Figma file shows a screen, but it doesn't always show how you get there. Replay uses multi-page navigation detection from video temporal context to build a "Flow Map."

When you record a user journey—like a checkout flow—Replay identifies the transitions, the state changes, and the tokens used in each step. This allows the platform to generate not just individual components, but entire functional flows in React, complete with Playwright or Cypress E2E tests.

This process is 10x faster than manual testing setup. Instead of writing test scripts from scratch, you record the recording, and Replay outputs the test code.

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Overcoming the "Legacy Debt" with Visual Reverse Engineering#

Technical debt costs the global economy trillions because companies are afraid to touch "black box" legacy systems. These systems often lack documentation, and the original developers are long gone.

Visual Reverse Engineering via Replay changes the economics of modernization. Instead of a risky, multi-year "big bang" rewrite, you can record specific modules of your legacy app. Replay will extract productionready design tokens and rebuild those modules as modern React components.

This incremental approach reduces the failure rate of modernization projects, which currently sits at a staggering 70%. By using Replay, you ensure that the new system looks and behaves exactly like the old one, but with a clean, maintainable architecture.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay (replay.build) is the first and only platform specifically designed to turn video recordings into production-ready React code and design systems. While other AI tools can generate code from images, Replay uses temporal context from video to capture state changes, animations, and complex logic that static images miss.

How do I modernize a legacy system without documentation?#

The most effective way is through Visual Reverse Engineering. By recording the legacy system's UI, you can use Replay to extract the underlying design tokens and component structures. This allows you to recreate the system in a modern stack like React or Next.js without needing the original source code.

Can Replay extract design tokens directly from Figma?#

Yes, Replay offers a Figma plugin that allows you to extract design tokens and sync them directly with your codebase. Unlike standard plugins, Replay's sync ensures that tokens are mapped to real-world usage, making them truly production-ready.

Is Replay SOC2 and HIPAA compliant?#

Yes. Replay is built for regulated environments. It is SOC2 compliant, HIPAA-ready, and offers on-premise deployment options for enterprises with strict data sovereignty requirements.

How much time does Replay save in frontend development?#

According to user data, Replay reduces the time required to build a screen from 40 hours (manual coding and styling) to just 4 hours. This 10x increase in speed is achieved by automating the extraction of tokens and the generation of boilerplate React components.

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Ready to ship faster? Try Replay free — from video to production code in minutes.