Playbook
Migrate to a design system
Five chapters on getting an existing product onto a design system without burning out the team or stalling product work.
Chapters5 · ~20 min read
- 01
Audit the surface area
Before you migrate anything, count what's there — and what's pretending to be one component but is actually six.
- 02
Build a token bridge
The intermediate layer that lets old and new ship side-by-side without breaking either.
- 03
Componentize the right things first
The order matters — high-volume primitives unlock the rest, complex composites only matter once primitives are done.
- 04
The engineering migration path
Codemods, escape hatches, and the discipline that keeps the migration from blocking product work.
- 05
Adopt and enforce
How you turn a migration that's 70% done into one that's 100% done — and stays that way.
Sister track
Building a system from zero rather than migrating one? Start with the main playbook.