Figma announces native import & export of variables aligning to W3C design tokens 1.0 spec

Figma is slowly releasing the Schema by Figma talks to YouTube. Today they put the talk about the Design Tokens Community Group 1.0 spec release online.

Here's a summary:

• Have you ever noticed how Figma delegates the import and export of variables to plugins?
• No longer... this will be a native feature soon (releasing in November 2026)
• The design tokens community group released a stable specification for the design tokens spec. This is a JSON specification that will help to share design tokens across tools. It will deliver interoperability among tools
• The native Figma import/export aligns with the design tokens spec.

How will this work in practice?

You can export per mode - then you will download a zip. Or you can export multiple modes - then you get a zip with a JSON per mode.

Importing will work by dragging JSON files in.

When you are importing into a blank collection, new variables will be created. But when you already have variables, the logic is more nuanced:

1. Import into an existing mode, no new variables will be created
2. The import will update existing variables with the imported value

You can view more details in the this video where Chad Bergman explains it al (from 3:52) :

In the video he also goes into extended collections, which sadly is locked to the enterprise plan.