Design Token Community Group

The Design Token Community Group is a W3C community group working to standardize design token formats and enable interoperability between design and development tools. Understanding this group’s work helps teams anticipate where token tooling is heading and how to engage with standardization efforts.

What Is the Design Token Community Group

The Design Token Community Group (DTCG) is an open group operating under the W3C Community Group program. It brings together representatives from design tools, development tools, and organizations using design systems to develop shared standards for design tokens.

The group’s primary output is the Design Tokens Format Module specification, which defines how tokens should be structured for tool interoperability.

How the Design Token Community Group Works

The DTCG operates through regular meetings, GitHub discussions, and collaborative specification development.

Membership is open to anyone interested in design tokens. Joining requires a W3C account and agreement to the community group’s licensing terms. Members participate according to their interest and availability.

Meetings occur regularly, discussing specification progress, resolving open issues, and reviewing proposed changes. Meeting notes are publicly available.

Specification development happens through GitHub:

• Issues track questions and problems
• Pull requests propose specification changes
• Discussions explore broader topics
• Draft documents evolve toward consensus

Participation levels vary:

• Observers follow discussions without active participation
• Contributors comment on issues and provide feedback
• Editors drive specification development and incorporate feedback

Key Considerations

• Community groups produce reports, not formal W3C standards
• Participation does not require deep technical expertise
• Industry representation influences specification direction
• Practical implementation experience informs specification decisions
• Feedback from production usage shapes the specification
• Consensus-building takes time; patience is needed
• Tool vendors’ participation suggests implementation intent
• Individual contribution can influence outcomes

Common Questions

How can teams participate?

Participation ranges from passive observation to active contribution.

Following along:

• Watch the GitHub repository for specification updates
• Read meeting minutes for decision context
• Monitor issue discussions for emerging consensus

Providing feedback:

• Open issues for problems or questions
• Comment on proposed changes with practical perspective
• Share implementation experience that informs decisions

Active contribution:

• Join the community group formally
• Attend meetings when possible
• Propose specification improvements
• Help resolve open questions

Organizations using design tokens at scale provide valuable real-world perspective. Sharing practical experience, even through simple issue comments, contributes meaningfully.

What influence does the group have?

The group’s influence operates through specification adoption by tool vendors.

When major tools implement the specification, it becomes the practical standard regardless of formal status. Figma, Adobe, Style Dictionary, and other significant players participate in the group.

The specification reduces vendor lock-in by enabling token portability. Organizations benefit from being able to switch tools without token format migration.

The group cannot mandate adoption. Tools implement the specification voluntarily because interoperability benefits their users and the ecosystem.

As adoption grows, the specification’s influence increases. Network effects mean more tools supporting the format makes the format more valuable.

How does the specification process work?

The specification evolves through discussion, proposal, and consensus.

Problems are identified through issues or meeting discussions. Common token representation challenges, edge cases, and interoperability gaps surface as topics.

Proposals address problems through suggested specification changes. Proposals may come from group members, tool implementers, or community feedback.

Discussion explores proposal implications. Different perspectives, use cases, and implementation concerns are considered.

Consensus forms when the group agrees on an approach. Formal voting is rare; usually rough consensus suffices.

Editors incorporate changes into the specification draft. The document evolves incrementally toward completeness.

Stability milestones mark when specification sections are considered relatively stable for implementation.

Summary

The Design Token Community Group develops standardization for design token formats through open collaboration. Participation ranges from following developments to active contribution. The group influences the ecosystem through specification adoption by tool vendors rather than formal authority. Teams can engage by following discussions, providing practical feedback, and contributing to specification development according to their interest and capacity.