Notes
May 25, 2026 · 1 min read
What a design token is not
A variable named after the thing it happens to be used for is not a token. It is a shortcut with a job title.
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Most token sets we audit are a list of every value in the design, renamed. There are four hundred of them, several are used once, and a third of them are called something like --card-header-border-bottom.
That is not a system, it is an index. It has the same maintenance cost as the CSS it replaced, plus a layer of indirection.
The test
A token earns its name if changing it changes several unrelated things correctly. If it changes exactly one thing, it is a value with a long name, and you should inline it and move on.
By that test this theme has five. Everything else in it is a derivation, and derivations do not need names because you never set them.
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