figma2theme 🎨

This CLI is a Portable tool designed to allow us to extract design tokens (colour palettes, typography, spacing scales, etc.) from a UI Kit Figma file and then use them to generate a theme.

figma2theme supports theme exports for the following UI frameworks:

• Tailwind CSS
• Chakra UI

Resources

UI Kit Figma template:

https://www.figma.com/design/b6tcOWalyHLDfsD0IBSXyE/Portable-UI-Kit-v2

Example Storybook generated from the template above using figma2theme and Chakra UI:

https://figma2theme.netlify.app/

Usage

1. Add figma2theme to your project

yarn add --dev figma2theme

2. Set your environment variables

a. Create a .figma2themerc file in your project repo and add the URL of your project's UI Kit file. Here's an example with the UI Kit template file:

{
  "fileUrl": "https://www.figma.com/design/b6tcOWalyHLDfsD0IBSXyE/Portable-UI-Kit-v2"
}

b. Generate a Figma API key and add it to the .env file of your project. An API key can be generated under the 'Personal Access Tokens' section of the Figma settings.

FIGMA_API_KEY=

3. Generate your theme

Tailwind CSS

Run the following command to generate your Tailwind CSS theme:

yarn figma2theme generate-tailwind

By default the generated file will be saved as tailwind.figma2theme.js in the root of your project.

Chakra UI

Run the following command to generate your Chakra UI theme:

yarn figma2theme generate-chakra

By default the generated files will be saved to the ./theme directory.

4. Import the theme

Tailwind CSS

Open your tailwind.config.js file and add the generated theme to your presets array like so:

import figmaPreset from './tailwind.figma2theme.js';

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
const config = {
	presets: [figmaPreset],

This setting will use the generated theme as the base for your Tailwind configuration, giving you access to all the tokens from the UI Kit while still allowing you to extend or override them in your tailwind.config.js file as needed.

For more information on this setting see the Tailwind docs: https://tailwindcss.com/docs/presets

Chakra UI

Change your imports from import { theme } from '@chakra-ui/react' to the generated theme location so that the generated theme is used instead of the default Chakra UI theme.

5. Import the stories (Optional)

figma2theme provides a variety of Storybook stories that allow you to view elements of your current Chakra UI theme, including foundational values (e.g. colour palettes, font sizes, etc.) and component styles (e.g. button variants, text styles, etc.) These stories are currently only available for Chakra UI.

To view these stories in the Storybook of your project, open .storybook/main.js and insert the following glob to the stories array:

../node_modules/@portablestudios/figma2theme/lib/**/*.stories.js

Development

Want to work on figma2theme? Here's how to get started.

First set up your environment variables by duplicating the template:

cp .env.dist .env

Then generate a Figma API key and use it for the FIGMA_API_KEY environment variable. A key can be generated under the 'Personal Access Tokens' section of the Figma settings.

Running the CLI

While developing the CLI you can use it by running:

yarn dev

This is equivalent to running figma2theme in a project.

For example, to generate a Chakra UI theme run the following:

yarn dev generate-chakra

If you want to test figma2theme globally run the following:

yarn global:install

This will build the CLI and use Yarn to install it globally, allowing you to run the CLI by typing figma2theme anywhere.

To remove the globally installed package run the following:

yarn global:remove

Storybook

The provided stories can be previewed by running:

yarn storybook

Ensure you have generated a theme beforehand using yarn dev generate-chakra.