name: open-fig
description: Open, decode, and inspect a Figma .fig file locally — no Figma app, account, login, or network needed. Use this WHENEVER the user wants to look inside, read, open, decode, convert, or extract anything from a .fig file (or a Figma export sitting on disk): listing the screens/frames, pulling the text content of a screen, extracting design tokens (color/spacing variables), grabbing the embedded images, or turning the design into JSON so it can be implemented in code. Trigger even when the user just says "open this figma file", "what's in this .fig", "extract the design from X.fig", "get the colors out of the Figma file", or points at a path ending in .fig — they almost never know it's a proprietary binary, so don't make them ask for "decoding" by name. Do NOT use for live figma.com URLs (that needs the browser/Figma API, not this skill) or for already-exported PNG/SVG/PDF assets (just read those directly).
open-fig — read a Figma .fig without Figma
A .fig file looks opaque but is fully decodable offline. This skill turns one into a JSON scene graph plus extracted assets, then lets you query screens, text, colors, and design tokens — so you can inspect a design or implement it in code without opening Figma or hitting its API.
What a .fig actually is (so the steps make sense)
A .fig is a ZIP containing canvas.fig, thumbnail.png, meta.json, and images/ (extension-less PNG/JPEG blobs). canvas.fig is Figma's fig-kiwi binary: an 8-byte magic, a version word, then length-prefixed blocks — block 0 is a Kiwi schema (deflate-raw), block 1 is the document tree. The tree decodes against its own embedded schema, so no external schema file is needed.
The one gotcha that breaks most third-party tools: modern Figma compresses the data block with Zstandard (magic 28 b5 2f fd), not deflate. The bundled decoder auto-detects per block and uses Node's built-in zstd, so it handles both old and new exports. If you ever see a tool return "Attempted to parse invalid message" or a suspiciously tiny inflate, that tool predates the zstd switch — use this skill instead.
Requirements
- Node ≥ 23.8 (24 LTS recommended) — needs the built-in
zlib.zstdDecompressSync. Check with node -e "require('zlib').zstdDecompressSync && console.log('ok')". If it's missing, tell the user to use a newer Node; don't try to polyfill.
unzip on PATH (standard on macOS/Linux) — used to expand the .fig container.- No
npm install, no network: the Kiwi decoder is vendored at scripts/lib/kiwi.js.
Step 1 — decode
Run the decoder. It expands the container (so images/, meta.json, thumbnail.png land on disk) and writes canvas.json next to them.
node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/open-fig/scripts/fig2json.js" "<path/to/file.fig>" [outDir]
outDir defaults to <file>.extracted/ beside the .fig. The command prints a summary: file name, node count, image count, design-token count, node-type histogram, and the top-level frames (screens) per page. That summary is usually enough to orient the user — relay the screen list and the headline counts.
canvas.json can be large (tens of MB) — do not Read it into context wholesale. Always go through Step 2's query helper or a targeted node -e/jq so only summaries enter context.
Step 2 — inspect with the query helper
query.js rebuilds the node tree (the flat nodeChanges list is linked by guid = sessionID:localID and parentIndex.guid) and answers the common questions. Prefer it over hand-traversing the JSON.
Q="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/open-fig/scripts/query.js"
node "$Q" <canvas.json> screens [pageSubstr]
node "$Q" <canvas.json> find "<substr>"
node "$Q" <canvas.json> frame "<name>"
node "$Q" <canvas.json> text "<name>"
node "$Q" <canvas.json> tokens
frame/text match by name (case-insensitive); on multiple matches they prefer an exact name, else the largest node (the screen, not a sub-element), and report what they picked.
Choosing what to run
Map the user's intent to the smallest useful command — don't dump everything by default.
- "open it" / "what's in this file" → Step 1, then relay the printed screen list + counts.
- "what does the X screen look like" / "implement the X screen" →
frame "X" for structure+styles; pair with the matching image in images/ if they want the pixels.
- "get the copy / text / translations" →
text "X" (or loop over screens).
- "extract the colors / design tokens / theme" →
tokens. Offer to write them out as CSS variables / a TS theme / Tailwind config for the target codebase.
- "show me the screens" → view
thumbnail.png (whole-canvas overview) and/or specific files under images/.
Going deeper than the helper
For anything query.js doesn't cover (auto-layout, constraints, effects, component properties, exact transforms), query canvas.json directly but keep raw data out of context — print only what you need:
node -e '
const j=require("./canvas.json"); const n=j.nodeChanges;
const key=g=>g?g.sessionID+":"+g.localID:null;
// ...filter/summarize, console.log only the summary...
'
Useful node fields: type, name, size {x,y}, transform, fillPaints[] (type:SOLID, color {r,g,b,a} as 0–1 floats), strokePaints[], fontSize, fontName.family, textData.characters, cornerRadius, stackMode/stackSpacing (auto-layout), effects[]. Colors are 0–1 floats — multiply by 255 for 8-bit / hex.
Failure modes & honesty
zstdDecompressSync missing → Node too old (see Requirements). Report it; don't fake a decode.- "kiwi decode failed" → likely a
.fig newer than the vendored kiwi-schema 0.5.0 schema model. Say so plainly; the assets (images/, thumbnail.png) are still extracted and usable. Refreshing the vendored kiwi.js (see scripts/lib/NOTICE.md) is the fix.
- Vector shapes carry no rasterized pixels — geometry is in path data. For visual fidelity, use the matching
images/ blob or the frame's exported asset, not the vector node.
- This reads designs; it does not write
.fig files. If the user wants to create/modify a .fig, that's a different (lossy) path — say so rather than improvising.
