Non-published components don't receive updates

We are also experiencing this issue. It’s a hurdle to how we’re implementing both layout assets and components for our design system.

Was there ever a resolution for this? I have the same with our sub/base componenents cluttering up our assets library and I don’t want my designers using them. But if I don’t publish then we can’t push the updates.

Commenting so that the thread won’t close. This is a huge issue as soon as the peopel consuming the components are no longer the same people making the components.

Our team is using a low-opactiy black background (applied on the dotted component container, or on the parent section) to mark the components that should not be used directly. It causes them to show up in the assets panel with a black background. But the workaround still has drawbacks.

 

I have tried this again after a while with a fresh library file and a fresh design file.

In the library file I create some base components like .Price, .Message, etc. prefixed with a dot so they won’t publish. The .Message component contains a text layer with the value “Available”. I nest the base components inside a BuyBox component which is actually published. 

In the design file I create an instance of of BuyBox and override the text layer within the nested .Message of the instance from “Available” to “Out of stock”.
 

Now in the library file I change the font-size of the text layer in .Message from 16px to 18px. When I publish, again only the BuyBox is published. 

After updating the design file, the text layer font size updates correctly as modified within the unpublished .Message component while the overridden value is preserved.

Can someone confirm? 
 

I ran into the issue of nested hidden base components not updating before, so I’d like to double check with you folks, if this is an issue no more.

Thanks!

​@Tom Turbo I’m glad it’s working for you, but unfortunately, If you use instance swap or slots with your helper components, Figma will stop you from publishing the component because it “contains unpublished preferred instances” ><

Thanks for your feedback!

Is this what you’re referring to? I can publish this anyway and the instance swap works in the design file. It’s obviously not possible to switch to another hidden component like .Message since that one is not published. 

Any other voices?

Side note: We’re still not using the dot because we don’t fully trust it :) Our naming convention is to prefix base components with a tilde, like ~Button. That way, in assets panel and insert overlay, the base components are alphabetically sorted after all regular components. 

​@Tom Turbo yeah sorry that’s what I mean, that you can’t use the helper components because they won’t be published. And if I publish it, it’ll show up in Assets even though its not meant to be used by itself like that.
The tilde is a really good hack!! I’ll start doing that too, thanks

we’ve been hacking with adding orange backgrounds to subcomponents variant groups and purple to main component variant groups, but this breaks as soon as a component isn’t in a group. 

i was so excited to jump into slots and it’s just totally backfired on me because no i have to reveal hundreds of subcomponents that should never be used directly by an author but need to be linked and available by components.