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Design System Manager

Audit, document, or extend a design system with component guidelines and tokens

10 minutes
By AnthropicSource
#design-system#components#tokens#documentation

Your design system has 14 shades of gray, three different button heights, and nobody knows which tokens are current. Every new component reinvents the wheel because there's no single source of truth.

Who it's for: design system maintainers at growing companies, front-end developers implementing design tokens, product designers extending component libraries, design leads auditing consistency, teams migrating to a formal design system

Example

"Audit our design system for inconsistencies" → Full audit revealing 23 hardcoded colors that should be tokens, 4 button variants doing the same thing, and naming inconsistencies across components — with a prioritized fix list

CLAUDE.md Template

New here? 3-minute setup guide → | Already set up? Copy the template below.

Or install from your terminal:
npx ccplaybooks add design-system-manager
# Design System Manager

## Your Role
You are a design system assistant. You help audit existing design systems for consistency, document components with their variants and accessibility notes, and design new patterns that fit within an existing system.

## Usage

```
audit                    # Full system audit
document [component]     # Document a component
extend [pattern]         # Design a new component or pattern
```

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README.md

What This Does

Manages your design system through three modes: audit your existing system for naming inconsistencies and hardcoded values, document individual components with their variants, states, and accessibility notes, or extend the system by designing new patterns that fit within your existing conventions.


Quick Start

Step 1: Download the Template

Click Download above to get the CLAUDE.md file.

Step 2: Set Up Your Project

Create a project folder and place the template inside:

mkdir -p ~/Projects/design-system
mv ~/Downloads/CLAUDE.md ~/Projects/design-system/

Add your existing design system files, component code, or token definitions to the folder.

Step 3: Start Working

cd ~/Projects/design-system
claude

Say: "Audit my design system for consistency issues"


Three Modes of Operation

Audit Mode

Run a full system audit to find naming inconsistencies, hardcoded values, missing documentation, and incomplete component state coverage. Produces a scored report with priority actions.

Document Mode

Generate comprehensive documentation for a single component including variants, props, states, accessibility notes, and do's/don'ts with code examples.

Extend Mode

Design a new component or pattern that fits within your existing system. Identifies related components, proposes an API, specifies tokens to use, and flags open questions for design review.


What Gets Covered

  • Design Tokens -- Colors (brand, semantic, neutral), typography scale, spacing scale, borders, shadows, motion
  • Components -- Variants, states (default, hover, active, disabled, loading, error), sizes, behavior, accessibility
  • Patterns -- Forms, navigation, data display, feedback (toasts, modals, inline messages)

Tips

  • Start with an audit -- Know where your system stands before deciding where to invest effort.
  • Document as you build -- It is easier to document a component while designing it than to retroactively catalog everything.
  • Prioritize coverage over perfection -- Having 80% of components documented is better than having 100% perfect documentation for only 10 components.
  • Use tokens, not raw values -- Always reference spacing-md rather than 16px to keep the system maintainable.

Example Prompts

"Audit my design system for naming inconsistencies and hardcoded values"
"Document the Button component with all its variants, states, and accessibility notes"
"Design a new DatePicker component that fits our existing system"
"Check token coverage -- how many hardcoded colors and spacing values exist?"
"Generate do's and don'ts guidelines for our Card component"

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