Design System Glossary

Style Dictionary

Style Dictionary is Amazon's open-source build system for design tokens. It takes a single source of truth — typically a JSON file containing your tokens — and transforms it into platform-specific code: CSS variables, SCSS, Swift, Kotlin, JavaScript objects, anything. It's the most widely adopted tool in design-system token pipelines.

Pair it with Tokens Studio in Figma and you get a full loop: designers edit tokens in Figma, sync to Git, Style Dictionary builds the outputs, products consume them. We use this exact pipeline in automating design systems from Figma to production in Craft CMS. The W3C Design Tokens Community Group spec is gradually standardising the JSON format Style Dictionary helped popularise.