What is Figma Specs?
Specs is a Markdown editor Figma announced at Config India on October 14, where teams write down their design language and rules. It can be a standalone file or sit on the canvas, and can reference canvas elements and embed FigJam diagrams, code layers and designs.
The point is that it serves people and agents alike: an agent can consult this centralized context while designing and follow brand rules. There are no official plan or price details yet; Technori mentions an open beta on Professional plans and above, which you should confirm yourself.
If I write a Spec, will the agent definitely follow it?
There is no such guarantee. The reporting is explicit that how an agent reads a Spec, how strictly it must follow it and how Figma would enforce it are not stated; Figma says only that it is adding tools to make results more predictable, not that they will be fully consistent.
So Specs is better understood as putting the rules where the agent can see them. How well they are followed has to be verified through your own generation records.
What are code layers, and do they cost anything?
Code layers let users add code to designs for more interactive prototypes, and ask the agent to turn a design into code or change part of it. They moved from a private beta in June to a public beta.
On cost, Technori says editing is free on paid plans until November 4, 2026 and uses AI credits afterward. TechCrunch and ALM Corp mention no pricing, so this too rests on a single source.
What should Design System teams do now?
There's no need to wait for Specs to open fully. Four things come first: replace adjectives in documentation with concrete values; write down which components the agent may use and which it must not invent; add states such as empty, loading, error and permission denied; and name an owner, keeping the document short enough for one person to maintain.
Then add one measurement: record the share of generated results that get discarded. That is the evidence of whether the documentation works, and more practical than any feature description.
On October 14, at its first Config event in India, Figma announced a batch of features. The one Design System teams should pay most attention to is Specs, a Markdown-based editor where a team writes down its design language and rules for both people and AI agents to follow. A Spec can be a standalone file in Figma or sit on the canvas, can reference canvas elements, and can embed FigJam diagrams, code layers and designs. Teams can also bring in design libraries, code libraries and guidelines as shared context an agent can consult while designing. Figma says this applies to its own agents and to third-party ones.
Code layers moved from a private beta that began in June to a public beta, letting users ask the agent to turn a design into code or change part of it. Figma's MCP gained more than 20 new tools, with Open Code, Dia, Meta Muse and the Indian startup Sarvam named. The agent on canvas was opened to a wider audience in the week before the event, and Figma says it is adding tools to steer the AI toward more predictable outcomes.
Chief design officer Loredana Crisan gave a pair of numbers for context: 17 times more lines of code are being produced today than in the past, but releases have grown only 1.3 times. The point is that the bottleneck has moved from producing to reviewing, and the purpose of Specs is to have agents produce fewer things that get sent back.
First, what is known. The TechCrunch and ALM Corp reports give no price, plan or firm release date for Specs. Technori's October 21 article says Specs is in open beta on the Professional, Organization and Enterprise plans, alongside Guidelines (a guideline file attached to a published library that Figma passes to the agent automatically, open beta) and Code sources (letting agents read real components from a GitHub repo or npm package, closed beta). That plan information appears in a single source, so confirm it on Figma's official pages before relying on it.
ALM Corp also lists what is not stated: how an agent actually reads a Spec, how strictly an agent must follow it, how Figma would enforce compliance, and whether third-party agents can use it today. The report makes no claim that Specs make results fully consistent. In short, Specs gives the rules a home, but how far the rules get enforced has not been publicly explained.
Technori's central argument is that design system documentation is no longer only a reference for people: AI agents now read it and build from it. Vague rules turn into output that someone has to review and often discard, and writing precise rules is the cheapest way to cut that waste. The article suggests writing five kinds of content first: component rules (which components agents may use and which they must never invent), exact values for spacing and type rather than adjectives, states and edge cases (empty, loading, error, permission denied), content rules (voice, capitalization, button copy), and retired patterns the agent should not revive.
Who maintains it? The article puts ownership with the product team, advises keeping the file short enough for a human to maintain, and says the rules and components should ship together in the published library.
First, stale documentation sends agents in the wrong direction at scale, because they follow old rules consistently and confidently. Second, usage: Technori says code layers editing is free on paid plans until November 4, 2026 and uses AI credits after that, and Specs, Payload and image generation also consume credits. Third, portability: Specs itself is Markdown, but much of the surrounding context lives inside Figma libraries.
The article also offers a reverse test worth keeping: if after a quarter the team is still discarding most generated output, documentation may not be the real constraint.
If you run a design system, here is what you can do now without waiting for Specs: replace the adjectives in your existing documentation with values, write down the "don't invent" component rules, name an owner, and start recording the share of generated results that get thrown away. That share is the evidence of whether the documentation works, and the basis for deciding later whether to pay for more credits.
If you're evaluating Figma plans, note that most of these features are still in beta, the plan information currently rests on Technori alone, and the free period for code layers ends November 4. Don't upgrade on the strength of a conference announcement; wait until you can test on your own files.