token-compliance

Token compliance

A skill for identifying token compliance violations in a codebase or implementation: hardcoded raw values where tokens should be used, wrong-tier token references, and inconsistent token application. Produces a violation report with file references and remediation guidance.

Context

Token compliance problems compound quietly. A single hardcoded hex value does not break anything. Two hundred of them, distributed across a codebase by dozens of contributors over two years, mean that a brand refresh or a dark mode implementation becomes a manual find-and-replace operation through thousands of files rather than a token update.

The compliance check exists to catch violations before they accumulate, and to understand the pattern of violations when they already have. The pattern matters: if hardcoded values are concentrated in one product area or one team's contribution, the response is different than if they are evenly distributed.

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Configuration

Before producing output, check for a .ds-ops-config.yml file in the project root. If present, load:

• severity.* — overrides for violation severity. Especially: hardcoded_color, wrong_tier_reference, tier_leakage
• system.theming — if true, elevate hardcoded colour violations to the configured severity (typically critical)
• system.styling — pre-selects the detection approach
• integrations.github — if enabled, auto-search for violations across the repo (see below)
• integrations.style_dictionary — if enabled, use the parsed token tree as the reference for what tokens exist and their correct tiers
• gates.* — if running as part of component-to-release, these determine which violations block release

Auto-pull integrations

GitHub (integrations.github.enabled: true):

• Before running the manual compliance checks, do a broad search of integrations.github.repo for hardcoded values:
  • gh api search/code -q "repo:[repo] language:css #[0-9a-fA-F]{6}" — hex colours in CSS
  • gh api search/code -q "repo:[repo] language:scss #[0-9a-fA-F]{6}" — hex colours in SCSS
  • Search for px values in styling files as a spacing compliance signal
• Use the results to quantify scope before the detailed audit — "approximately 340 hardcoded hex values across 47 files" is a useful framing for the report summary