Slot updates from library components are not applied to instances

Hi ​@Fabrice Brzycki, thanks for reaching out!

I completely understand the frustration and how this must be slowing down your workflow. Thanks for also taking the time to share this in such detail. It's helpful to understand exactly how your design system is set up. To make sure we fully understand what you're running into, I have a couple of quick questions:

• Are the variable assignments (e.g., spacing, padding) that aren't applying located inside the slot content itself, or on the slot container?
• Have these components been customized/edited inside the slot instances, or are they still using the default slot content from the library?

The primary reason I ask… as of April 7th, there was a behavior update to slots. Edited slot content no longer links back to the main component, which means library updates won't automatically propagate to slot content that has been modified. This was an intentional change for experience consistency. If your slot content has been customized at all, it would explain why variable assignments from the library aren't coming through. A few things that should still work in the meantime:

• Variables are still fully supported inside slot content
• Keeping spacing/padding variable bindings outside the slot boundary where possible
• Using variable mode changes (e.g., switching a size mode from S → M) instead of direct variant swapping to achieve dynamic behavior. Here's a helpful guide.

With these details, we can troubleshoot further. I understand how critical this is for a design system built around slots, so I want to ensure I point you in the right direction. 

Hello ​@djv, where can I find the Slot changelog?  I went to the main Figma changelog page but didn’t see it there.  It would be helpful to follow changes to Slot feature.

Hi ​@Kerry_Johnson, thanks for chiming in here! 

I checked with our Slots team directly, and here's what they shared: The update on the 7th was during the open beta phase, where the team was iterating quickly. There was no separate log kept for that period specifically.

Going forward, while there isn't a dedicated Slots change log, any Slots updates will be folded into our main release notes, so that's the best place to keep an eye on things. 

Thank you!

Hello, we have the same problem.

Component changes in a library are not properly updated in slots using those components.
It looks like variables are pointing to a different version of the same file.

Its only visible when selecting the assigned color again and then it is not connected / means preselected. Only when choosing the same color again, it is connected again. But this is then treated as an override of the component which again prevents components from being updated in the future.

Before (after lib update)
 

After (after manually applying the same token again)
 

But now its an override :-(

 

So it looks like updates within slots do not work.

Are there any news on this topic?
At least some feedback from Figma if this is already reproduced as a bug?

Hi ​@hummh, thanks for chiming in here! 

I understand the frustration here, but did you miss my reply above? What you're describing (the variable showing as disconnected until you reselect it, which then registers as an override) lines up with the same April 7th slot behavior change I mentioned previously.

Again, once slot content is interacted with, even to reapply the same value, it's treated as an edit and stops inheriting library updates. So to directly answer your question, this isn't a bug, it's the expected result of the slots team’s intentional change. Though I understand that it doesn't feel intentional from your side given the workflow impact. Let me know if you're seeing this even on slot content that's never been touched; that would be a different case worth flagging separately.

He thanks for your reply.
Actually I found out that it has nothing to do with slots.
So all good!

I lost where my own thread around this subject was, but to add to this discussion. We switched to using slots for a big multi-app design. And every week we work with it further, the design debt is increasingly massively because the slots do not receive updates from the parent components anymore. There is no way to trust anything in the entire design anymore. If it is a big visual change, we can see we need to reset instances manually, but most adjustments are so small and hidden in slots-in-slots, that it’s a matter of time until the whole design becomes unusable.

I hope you can reconsider to make it behave like this, and/or provide some manual toggles someway to allow users to pick for themselves if they want to force changes when a component updates.

Does anybody, with a complex setup, find any use in the slots as they currently are? Curious about those use cases to see if we are doing anything wrong.

You’re not doing it wrong, slots is essentially broken in its current state for anything serious, especially Design System type work where you DON’T want to your components to go out of sync.

One of the selling point of slots (this from their documentation)...

• Healthier design systems: Reduce occurrences of detached components so instances will continue receiving updates from the main component

...is quickly ruined when changing a slotted child.  Slots in its current form easily becomes a quasi-detached component with a reset button attached.

I hope Figma takes another look at this, I think anyone that has tried using slots for design system work will become quickly frustrated with things not syncing.

I have the same issues, and I agree that slots are essential broken in their current form.

Why would you ever make the decision to remove the link to master components from edited slots? That makes absolutely no sense to me. It renders slots basically useless for design systems. It is actually infuriating.

Honestly, the setup of Figma is annoying me with bloated variants matrixes in components, and I thought that slots at least could alleviate some of the pain. Slots working with nonsense logic might just be the nail in the coffin that makes me explore for other tools..