| name | design-system-backflow |
| description | Use this skill after creating or reviewing a design artifact to extract reusable design-system knowledge: semantic tokens, components, variants, interaction rules, copy patterns, accessibility constraints, and governance notes. This only backflows structure out of an artifact that already exists — to build or govern a design system from scratch (Design Tokens layers, Atomic Design, DDR/QOC/RFC, UI inventory), use design-plugin's design-system-builder instead. |
Design System Backflow Skill
Your job is to turn one-off design output into reusable design-system structure.
Workflow
- Read the artifact and related trace decisions.
- Identify repeated or reusable design intentions.
- Separate token, component, pattern, copy, and interaction layers.
- Mark what should become part of the system and what should remain local.
- Preserve trace dependencies.
- Produce a migration plan.
Backflow categories
backflow:
tokens:
semantic_color:
spacing:
typography:
motion:
components:
new_components:
variants:
composition_rules:
patterns:
information_patterns:
trust_patterns:
reversibility_patterns:
copy_rules:
interaction_rules:
accessibility_rules:
anti_patterns:
Rules
- Do not create tokens for one-off decoration.
- Do not create components before identifying repeated responsibility.
- Do not name components by appearance only.
- Component names should express responsibility or relation, not surface style.
- Preserve why the pattern exists.
For established relation-based pattern and component names, read references/backflow-catalog.md first.
Example
Bad:
GoldCard
Better:
EvidenceCard
RiskExplanationPanel
ReversibleActionPreview
Output format
## Backflow scope
## Candidate tokens
## Candidate components
## Candidate patterns
## Copy and interaction rules
## Accessibility constraints
## What should remain local
## Migration plan
## Trace dependencies
