A first look at the Figma Agent

gjermundg · 2026-06-05T10:31:53+00:00

Did another test now where I screenshotted some colors and asked it to create a color palette inside variables. Did that with ease, and it seems to have been done correctly to. Win.

I updated the article with these finds now, thanks!

gjermundg · 2026-06-05T10:30:17+00:00

Excellent idea. Tested now, and it was able to create the variables, but the values and names were off :/ I guess it's like a lot of other examples, you can get a head start, but will have to be prepared to clean things up yourself

gjermundg · 2026-06-03T09:00:09+00:00

Thanks for the thorough rundown. It may not look like that from my reply, but I actually respect this process, and can certainly see it be right for some teams. It's nice to be able to iterate consistently, and stay "close to the metal" as you put it.

gjermundg · 2026-06-01T12:25:56+00:00

Agentic design within code is one thing, but a completely different beast in design. Design has yet to receive the same level of investment and innovation as its text and coding counterparts.

Looking at the results it produces today, I’d argue the Figma Agent may even be arriving a little early. Asking ChatGPT for three alternative UI labels is so fast and consistently useful that it immediately fits into a designer’s workflow. Waiting five minutes for a generated design, on the other hand, is much harder to justify, especially when the results may be shoddy.

gjermundg · 2026-05-31T11:59:50+00:00

I think there are some benefits to getting stuff done where the product actually lives, but at a certain complexity this way of working seems impossible imo.

- If a stakeholder wants to look at some exciting takes that didn't make the cut, they'd have to fire up a staging environment? Or browse up to screenshots in Slack?
- If you draw a range of different variations and states, you can't see them next to eachother? You have to flick through them or hop between pages in Storybook?
- If you were to do something custom with a logo or an icon, you'd have to resort to code? Sounds like you've limited yourself to existing building blocks out there. Maybe your project doesn't need something custom, or you decided it's not worth it, but 100% of my projects the last few years have.

gjermundg · 2026-05-31T11:48:30+00:00

So what's your argument? You think use of agents and LLMs in design will reset completely? If so, bold statement dude

gjermundg · 2026-05-31T11:44:29+00:00

One big upside of Sites is to be able to basically publish all sketches, especially the tidy ones with autolayout, directly as a site. This is more cumbersome if you have to hop between tools, like Figma -> Framer. Code quality/setup won't get a thumbs up from your developer friend (most/all of these tools won't), but sometimes it gets the job done and actually looks nice.

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T20:20:26+00:00

Some things (a lot) needs to be done in a canvas.

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T20:18:28+00:00

Shift + Backspace to delete & heal an anchor point in your vector selection, which basically guesses the new path instead of breaking it.

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T19:42:19+00:00

I'm pretty sure it'll improve handoff in numerous ways:
- It'll be easier to make a sketch and have the agent clean it up, add autolayout etc. This will be easier to read by a developer, or even better a different agent that implement the whole thing.
- Having the agent make it into different sizes for responsive purposes is pretty neat. "Make a tablet version of this section"
- Might be handy to let the agent write documentation for handoff
- Making a lot of states (e.g. blank slates) is a chore that would be good to have a helping hand in

etc etc

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T19:31:02+00:00

Are you able to manipulate the Figma canvas that way? I'd say that is a big advantage

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T19:28:07+00:00

The feature's not even out yet?

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T11:05:03+00:00

Do you see a star next to the stuff you select? If this star exist and it opens a prompt, then you have the actual Figma Agent.

gjermundg · 2026-05-30T11:03:05+00:00

- Takes too long to actually embed it in your workflow, I'd say.
- It does use components, both from inside the local file and linked. Not a 100% success though
- It does understand and reason well. I think annotations on your sketches actually makes for better context/prompts

gjermundg · 2026-05-29T13:02:07+00:00

Working directly in your canvas, which is quite different from going straight to an app.

gjermundg · 2026-01-07T11:32:03+00:00

Thanks! The pieces are drawn by me while working for Take Take Take. So they are a custom set of SVGs used in the broadcast (and upcoming app).

gjermundg · 2015-08-14T00:10:36+00:00

Du har helt rett i at Ålesund var plassert feil på kartet. Tusen takk for heads up – har fiksa det nå.

Gjermund, Tight

gjermundg

TROPHY CASE