HOW WE REBUILT THE FOUNDATIONS OF COMPONENT INSTANCES

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Figma replaced its decade-old Instance Updater architecture with a reactive system called Materializer, improving the performance of common operations in large design systems by up to 50%. The new framework separates concerns — layout, variable evaluation, and instance resolution now operate independently — eliminating cascading update bugs and reducing editor lockups. Built as a generic, reusable foundation, it already powers new features like rich text and slots, accelerating development across the company.