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Question

Figma Slots - Nested instance overrides break parent properties

  • April 8, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 205 views

Fin1

When a component uses properties to control nested instances inside a slot e.g. color, overriding any properties of the nested instance e.g. a text property, causes the parent component's properties to stop cascading into it. The only recovery path is a full instance reset, which wipes any existing overrides in the process.

As a result, for all components where parent properties control nested slot instances, the new slots feature cannot be adopted within our design system. I’ve attached a short video recording to demonstrate the issue. Thanks!

3 replies

AntonioB
  • New Participant
  • April 10, 2026

That’s exactly what I already have reported here https://forum.figma.com/report-a-problem-6/slot-item-override-in-nested-instance-breaks-full-slot-propagation-across-all-items-52706

I think the problem is that any override within items into a slot, make the whole slot also an override to Figma’s eyes, and, seriously, slots have been on private beta for a long time, how is possible no one notice that problem?


Florian Schröder

I experience the same bug which makes the slot component completely unusable for building flows. 

Figma please fix this soon


Kerry_Johnson
  • Active Member
  • July 17, 2026

I really feel like there needs to be a bigger callout about this limitation in the slot docs.  If anyone is serious about using slots especially in a design system they’ll quickly run into this unexpected issue.  I’ve ran into it when building tables, menus, and it has thwarted my plans of creating template pages with slots because my card component, etc. has its own slot.

This feature is shallow and needs more baking to truly align itself with slot component philosophy.