Hi Figma team and community,
This is related to a similar issue reported here:
MCP rate limit not acknowledging subscription
I'd like to suggest an improvement to the error messaging around API and MCP access for Dev seat users.
Current situation:
When a Dev seat user tries to access a Figma project via the API or MCP without having edit permission granted at the project level, they receive this error:
> "You've reached the Figma MCP tool call limit for your View seat on the Professional plan. Upgrade your seat or plan for more tool calls."
This is misleading in two ways:
1. The user already has a Dev seat — not a View seat.
2. Upgrading the plan is not the fix. The actual issue is that edit permission hasn't been granted for that specific project.
There is also a conceptual confusion worth addressing: Dev seat users do not have edit access to projects by design, which makes it counterintuitive that they need to be granted edit permission by the project owner in order for API/MCP access to work. This distinction between "editing in Figma" and "API access permission" is not explained anywhere in the UI or documentation, making it very hard to discover.
The fix, once discovered, is straightforward: the project owner grants edit permission to the Dev seat user, and API/MCP access works as expected — no upgrade needed.
Suggested improvement:
Update the error message to reflect the actual cause. For example:
> "API access requires edit permission on this project. Please ask the project owner to grant you edit access."
This small change would save Dev seat users significant time and confusion.
Thanks for considering it!