A practical guide on where and when to lint design tokens across a workflow. Covers four stages: at the source (design tool or editor), pre-commit hooks, CI pipeline, and a pre-publish gate. For each stage, the guide explains who owns the tokens, what checks are feasible, and the trade-offs depending on whether tokens originate in a design tool, code files, or native variables. Recommends starting with CI (Stage 3) as the minimum, adding pre-commit for local safety, and a pre-publish gate if tokens are distributed as a package. Emphasizes defense in depth and shifting checks left to reduce the cost of catching problems late.
Table of contents
Where Do Your Tokens Live?The Cost of Finding Problems LateThe Four StagesWhich Stages Do You Actually Need?Start Where It HurtsSort: