AI workflows collection: Teach the Figma agent how to apply your design system

In the previous steps, we look at updating your library assets and documenting how to use them. The final step is help the Figma agent read between the lines and make good decisions when generating designs. 

There are two main features that help with this:

• Provide real-world examples: Examples demonstrate how your components, variables, and layout patterns come together in a complete design.
• Explain your team's decisions with guidelines: Guidelines tell the agent which pattern to choose, what to avoid, and when a convention has exceptions.

Together, they help the agent create designs that reflect how your team actually uses the system—and give you a way to nudge the agent in the right direction if it starts producing work that doesn't hit the mark.

Provide real-world examples

Examples in your library should show your system solving familiar problems: a form, a dashboard, or a product page. A complete composition gives the agent a reference for how the pieces work together, including choices that individual asset descriptions may not capture.

There are two ways to identify examples for the agent:

• Create an Examples page. Add a page named Examples to the library file. Make each design on that page a component so the agent can reference it.
• Add a suffix to a component name. Add _example to a component’s name—for example, Dashboard/HeroSection_example. Use a descriptive name that helps the agent understand when the example is relevant. These can live anywhere in the file

Choose examples that represent the decisions you want the agent to repeat, and swap them out as your design system evolves.

Explain your team’s decisions with guidelines

Think about what you’d explain while onboarding a new teammate. Who are you designing for? What makes a choice appropriate for that audience? Which conventions or exceptions would they need to know to create something new?

Guidelines files let you put that knowledge into words and attach it to a design library. When someone asks the Figma agent to create a design using the published library, its guidelines files are automatically provided to the agent as extra context.

When documenting guidelines, start with decisions your team regularly has to explain or correct to the agent (or each other). For each one, describe:

• The situation: When does this guidance apply?
• What to do: Which pattern or approach should the agent choose?
• What to avoid: What’s a tempting but unsuitable choice?
• Why: What makes the recommended approach right for this situation?

The examples in the image above show savings goals for headphones and sneakers. A guidelines file can explain the audience behind those choices, helping the agent create other goals that feel equally relevant. For examples:

When creating placeholder savings goals, choose purchases and experiences that make sense for a Gen Z audience just starting their savings journey, such as headphones, sneakers, or concert tickets. Use modest, achievable target amounts. Avoid defaulting to major financial milestones like a house deposit or retirement, which don’t reflect the everyday saving this product is designed to encourage.

Keep each file focused on related decisions, and build on the documentation you already have. Put guidance about a particular component, style, or variable in that asset’s description and use guidelines files to explain conventions that the agent likely won't be able to figure out from the assets alone.

Learn how to create and add guidelines files to a design library.

Continue teaching over time

If the agent is generating designs you or your teammates repeatedly correct, like a component that doesn’t suit the task, a misinterpreted layout convention, or an novel pattern, you may need to add more context for the agent.

Choose the clearest place to address it:

• Update an asset description to clarify how to use a specific component, style, or variable.
• Add or revise an example to show how a composition should work.
• Update a guidelines file to explain a decision that applies across the library.

Then try a similar design task again and review the result. As your system evolves, keep the examples and guidelines aligned with the choices you want your team—and the agent—to make.