jrpease/throughline/design-system-audit

Design-system audit (brownfield front door)

Measures both sides of a pre-existing system so a retrofit can be right-sized, before anything is built or changed. It is the brownfield analog of /design-system-status: where status reports a local manifest, this assesses an external, mature system — a real codebase and an already-populated Figma file.

This is a brownfield skill. Before doing anything, read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/brownfield-retrofit.md — especially the read-discipline principle (never assert absence without a verified read) and the audit phase of the safe sequence. Greenfield builds skip this skill entirely.

Calibrate

Read user.codingLevel (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/coding-level.md) and scale explanation accordingly. The audit surfaces grep counts and a percentSemantic number — for new users explain what each means and why it matters (it decides rename-vs-rewrite); for comfortable users be terse. The measurements are identical across levels.

Prerequisites

Read the manifest. This skill needs Figma connected (figma.connected: true) for the inventory step, and a repo path for the code-surface step (workspace.localPath). If Figma isn't connected, offer to run figma-environment-setup first. Before the inventory, do a cheap liveness read to confirm the connection is actually live right now; if it fails, offer figma-environment-setup. The code-surface step works on any repo regardless of workspace.stage.

Step 1 — Size the code surface

Measure how many color decisions live in the codebase. Run the color-usage grep scaffold against the user's repo:

node ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/grep-color-usage.mjs --root <workspace.localPath>

It counts five categories: SCSS color vars, Tailwind color classes, Colors.* JS usages, raw hex + rgba() literals, and SVG hardcoded fills — producing the case-study worklist shape.

Tune the patterns to the actual repo, and say what you assumed (read discipline + §11). The shipped patterns are defaults, not ground truth. Before trusting the counts:

1. Look at the repo's real conventions — open a few SCSS/TS files, check the actual

color-variable prefixes ($primary-*, $grey-*, a custom prefix), the Tailwind color-class names, and whether colors come through a Colors.* object or some other accessor.

1. If the defaults don't fit, write a --config <patterns.json> of

{ "<category>": { "files": "<regex>", "pattern": "<regex>" } } tuned to this repo and re-run with it.

1. Report which categories used the assumed defaults vs. a tuned pattern — never

present default-pattern counts as if they were measured. The script prints this; pass it through to the user so partial coverage is visible, not hidden.

Don't assume the stack. The categories are color-specific but framework-agnostic; a repo with no Tailwind simply scores 0 there. Detect what the repo actually uses (is there a tailwind.config? SCSS? CSS-in-JS?) and explain the counts in those terms.

Step 1.5 — Size the documentation surface

Inventory existing documentation the same way the code surface is sized — from verified reads, never assumptions. Per component (or per code component when no Figma component exists yet), record whether usage docs already exist and where:

• Code: JSDoc/TSDoc on the component, an .mdx doc page, a per-component

README.

• Figma: a populated component description field.

Write the totals to audit.docSurface in the manifest, e.g. { "documented": 12, "undocumented": 34, "sources": { "codeJsdoc": 8, "mdx": 4, "figmaDescription": 6, "readme": 3 } }. This right-sizes the documentation retrofit (how much exists to adopt vs. author from scratch) so retrofit-planner's docs phase can be planned against real numbers. See ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/component-doc-schema.md for what a full record contains.

Step 2 — Inventory the Figma file (verified per-class reads)

Variables, text styles, and effect/paint styles are different surfaces — read each independently and report "none" only for the class whose own read came back empty (read discipline, fixes B2). Before counting variables, ensure all pages are loaded (await figma.loadAllPagesAsync()); treat a 0 on first read as suspect and re-read before reporting (fixes B1).

• Variables — figma_get_variables (handles dynamic-page, resolves aliases).

Record the count.

• Bindings — run the binding-survival audit snippet in

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/figma-scripting.md to count consuming bindings. This is the load-bearing number: it's what a careless rename would destroy.

• Text styles — figma_get_text_styles. Record the count.
• Effect/paint styles — figma_get_styles. Record the count.
• Modes — record the mode names per collection (e.g. ["Light", "Dark"]).

Never report a count you didn't read. If a read genuinely returns empty after a reliable load, that's a real 0; if it's suspect, re-read or ask the user once and persist — never guess.

Step 3 — Compute "% semantic"

From the inventory, estimate how much of the existing system is already semantic (named by role — text/default, surface/raised) vs. raw/primitive (named by value — grey-900, or bare hex). Report it as an integer 0–100 (audit.percentSemantic).

This single number right-sizes the retrofit: a largely-semantic system (~90%) is a rename-in-place + cleanup job; a low-semantic one is closer to a rewrite. Surface it early and plainly — "you're ~90% semantic, so this is mostly renames and a cleanup, not a rebuild" — so the user calibrates effort before committing.

Step 4 — Write the manifest and recommend the next step

Write the audit section (this skill owns it):

• codeSurface — the per-category counts from Step 1 (keys vary by what the repo uses;

omit categories that don't apply rather than reporting a misleading 0).

• figmaInventory — { variables, bindings, textStyles, effectStyles, modes } from

Step 2's verified reads.

• percentSemantic — the integer from Step 3.
• ranAt — the current ISO timestamp.

Set tokens.intakeMode: "retrofit" (this skill establishes the brownfield path — it owns this transition). Append design-system-audit to completedSkills.

Then recommend the next step:

• Report the documentation debt from audit.docSurface (documented vs.

undocumented) and note that the retrofit's docs phase will adopt existing docs before authoring the gaps.

• If the user wants the guided, gated end-to-end retrofit → `retrofit-planner`

(the orchestrator; recommended for multi-session retrofits).

• If they only want the crosswalk backbone next → `token-crosswalk-builder` (it

reads this audit section to seed its rows).

What this skill must NOT do

• Never build, rename, or delete anything — this is a measurement skill. Changes

belong to token-builder (refine), the retrofit phases, and cleanup.

• Never report a count without a verified read (read discipline). An unexpectedly-empty

read is a suspected error, not ground truth.

• Never present default grep patterns as measured truth — say what was assumed.
• Never assume the case-study stack (Tailwind/SCSS/Chromatic). Detect what the repo

actually uses and degrade gracefully.

• Never write another skill's manifest fields (e.g. tokenCrosswalk, retrofit.phase).
• Never overwrite workspace.origin — it is immutable after intake.