Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#11

Post by preommr » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

Any thoughts on why Citty, or if there's any other cli tools you might recommend?

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#12

Post by james_marks » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

Nice work!

How does it do applying styles from an existing codebase?

We have style guides, strong base css, etc. If that was represented when it built in Figma, that could be interesting.

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#13

Post by james_marks » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

pglevy wrote: post #10

I'm curious to understand more about your use case. I've been working on getting fellow designers out of Figma since it's easier to express intent in code now using LLMs.

Not OP, but my interest in Figma is that when a human designer needs to take over, UI/UX designers know Figma.

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#14

Post by Manly_may » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#15

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

Mic92 wrote: post #7

rafaelmn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Humanity's last exam" HN edition

I am a human and I can't...

looks like you failed your last exam, please exit through the red door down the aisle.

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#16

Post by findley_cheqs » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#17

Post by dannote » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

pglevy wrote: post #10

I'm curious to understand more about your use case. I've been working on getting fellow designers out of Figma since it's easier to express intent in code now using LLMs.

I still have a lot of assets living in Figma, and for some things it’s simply faster to prototype there before moving to code.

Personally, I’d really like to automate part of the workflow around exporting from Figma and assembling a design system into components — right now there’s just too much manual work involved.

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#18

Post by dannote » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

james_marks wrote: post #13

pglevy wrote: post #10

I'm curious to understand more about your use case. I've been working on getting fellow designers out of Figma since it's easier to express intent in code now using LLMs.

Not OP, but my interest in Figma is that when a human designer needs to take over, UI/UX designers know Figma.

Yeah, agreed.

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#19

Post by dannote » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

eddywebs wrote: post #5

I can attest that ai agent executing cli binaries is better than use of an mcp, just because of the limitations of mcp, also figma mcp requires a pro license. Does the figma cli require a pro license as well ?

I don’t think so. This CLI mostly relies on the plugin API, which is free.

Re: Show HN: Figma-use – CLI to control Figma for AI agents

#20

Post by dannote » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

james_marks wrote: post #12

Nice work! How does it do applying styles from an existing codebase? We have style guides, strong base css, etc. If that was represented when it built in Figma, that could be interesting.

Thanks! Right now it doesn't parse CSS directly, but you can bind colors to Figma variables:

  figma-use variable create "brand/primary" --collection  --type COLOR --value "#3B82F6"

Then reference them in JSX render:

  figma-use render ./Button.figma.tsx

  const colors = defineVars({
    primary: { name: 'brand/primary', value: '#3B82F6' },
  })

  export default () => (
    
      Button
    
  )

So if you map your design tokens to Figma variables first, components will reference them. Parsing CSS/Tailwind configs automatically could be a good feature though.