# Design tokens: The building blocks of a design system

DevFeed: [Design tokens: The building blocks of a design system](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/design-tokens-the-building-blocks-of-a-design-system-33521.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.aha.io/engineering/articles/design-tokens-the-building-blocks-of-a-design-system>)

Published: 2026-08-18T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Aha! Engineering Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/aha-engineering-blog.md>)

Topics: [Design system](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/design-system.md>), [ui](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ui.md>), [CSS](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/css.md>), [consistency](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/consistency.md>)

Tags: [atomic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/atomic.md>), [component](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/component.md>), [css](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/css.md>), [design](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/design.md>), [design-system](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/design-system.md>), [source-of-truth](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/source-of-truth.md>), [structure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/structure.md>), [tokens](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tokens.md>), [ui](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ui.md>), [variables](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/variables.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains how design tokens provide a shared language for visual design attributes in a scalable design system. It contrasts tokens with hard-coded values, describes primitive and semantic tokens, and discusses using the Design Tokens Community Group standard to connect design and engineering.

## Source excerpt

Implementing a design system at scale is often less about the pixels and more about the language we use to describe them. As a Senior Software Engineer at Aha! I've spent a lot of time thinking about how we can build a UI that is not only beautiful,