Handoff
Fixing a Design Handoff That Kept Breaking Down
Design work published where engineering already works, so it stops drifting out of sync after the handoff meeting.
Repository structure
Components, patterns, and guidelines committed and versioned alongside the codebase, instead of living in a disconnected design file.
Published reference
The documentation surface on GitHub Pages, browsable and linkable the same way engineers already reference API docs.
Branch review
A proposed pattern change moving through the same branch-and-review workflow engineers use for code, instead of a separate design review process on its own timeline.
Citable in a PR
A pull request referencing the design documentation directly, closing the gap between a design decision and its reflection in what actually ships.
Challenge
Design handoff ended where engineering's real work began. Figma files turned into historical records that quietly drifted out of sync with what shipped — with no structural way to keep them current.
Process
Design commits went through the same versioning, branching, and review flow as code, published to GitHub Pages so engineers could find it in the same tools and workflows they already trusted.
Research
The gap wasn't a discipline problem — design and engineering tools just spoke different languages and lived in different systems, which guaranteed lag no matter how careful the team was.
Design
A component is now "done" when it's committed with documentation that accurately describes its usage in the place engineers actually go to check it, not when a Figma frame looks approved.
Outcome
Questions that used to mean pinging a designer got answered by the documentation itself, and design and engineering could iterate on the same branch instead of finding problems after the build.