figma-environment-setup

Figma environment setup

This skill does three foundational jobs, in order:

1. Discover where you're working — find or create the project directory, scan what's already there, and set expectations.
2. Create the local working folder and write the design-system.json manifest into it (if not already present from step 1).
3. Connect the agent to Figma so later skills can read and write the file, then verify the connection works.

It is the required first step. Every other Figma skill does a cheap liveness check and, if it fails, points the user back here.

Who you're talking to

Assume the user is design-fluent but may have never set up a developer tool, created an API token, or used a terminal before. Explain every concept the first time it appears, in one plain sentence. Never assume they know what a "token", "MCP server", "config file", or "package manager" is. Be warm and concrete. When you ask them to do something outside the chat (in Figma, on a website), give the exact click path, not a vague instruction.

Read .throughline/references/manifest-schema.md before writing the manifest so you use the correct field names and defaults.

Step 0 — Intake (Locate → Scan → Brief)

This step runs before everything else. Establish where you're working, read what's already there, and set the user's expectations before taking any action. It has three phases in sequence.

Phase 1: Locate

Open by surfacing the user's current working directory and presenting three explicit options — no assumptions made about where they want to work or whether they have started anything already:

"Before we get started, I want to make sure we're working in the right place. You're currently in: [current working directory path]

Where should we set up?

• Here — this directory is where the design system should live
• Somewhere else — I have a project at a different path
• A new folder — create a fresh folder somewhere"

"Here": Proceed to the existing manifest check below.