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Sample Post: Shipping a Design System Incrementally

Sample Post: Shipping a Design System Incrementally

Placeholder4 min readJuly 20, 2026–

Placeholder post exercising the blog pipeline — headings, code blocks with titles, and inline code.

{/* PLACEHOLDER — replace with a real post before publishing. */}

Design systems fail when they are treated as big-bang rewrites. This placeholder walks through the incremental approach with a few code samples.

Start With Tokens

Tokens are the smallest contract between design and code:

:root {
  --background: oklch(1 0 0);
  --foreground: oklch(0.21 0.01 260);
}

Use var(--background) instead of raw palette values everywhere.

Then Primitives

  1. Port one primitive at a time.
  2. Keep the API surface identical.
  3. Verify with visual diffs.

Inline code matters too

Helpers like cn() keep class composition readable.