50 DESIGN TOKEN FILES, ONE PROBLEM: YOUR AGENTS CAN'T READ THE MEANING

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

An analysis of 50 public design systems found that while design tokens are well-structured for build pipelines, most lack the semantic metadata AI agents need to use them reliably, such as usage guidance, intent, and constraints. Adding descriptions, deprecation flags, and machine-readable rules directly to token files can significantly improve AI-generated design decisions by reducing ambiguity and making token systems truly agent-ready.