Reference a branch in another library

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
May 19, 2021
36 replies
4443 views

First and foremost, branching is a great addition to Figma, thank you!

Here is some background on how our Style and Component libraries are setup:

Project: Design System
File 1: Styles (text/color/other token styles)
File 2: Components (primitive components, larger organisms, and some templates)

What I’d like to do is create a branch in File 1 and change our brand color and add some text styles.

I’d then like to “stage” this branch so that I can reference it in File 2 (another file) and test some of the changes downstream in components to see how they might look before merging and publishing File 1 (in case there are things I need to change/add).

I would love some suggestions on how I might accomplish a workflow like this, or if it’s something that might be supported in the future.

Thanks!

Branching and merging

Show previous replies

James_Martin

Want to +1 using branches in other libraries/files!

Our use case is we have a figma workflow which intersects with design - so we do a LOT of testing in Figma. Testing to make sure layers are set up a certain way for developers, but we also need to test to make sure the applications can consume them properly.

Ideally we’d have a Test File that consumes the library, and for new features we could swap the branch out that we were looking at and test the branch directly before publishing it out / merging it.

Ben_Smeets

Active Member

Periodic reminder for the “stats”. Would still love to use branching, but can’t until it supports multiple files per branch (e.g. library + design file).

Sho_Kuwamoto

Figmate

Sorry… No news yet. It’s a good idea, but there are lots and lots of good ideas, so we can’t do them all at once.

For now, the best workaround is to put the test file directly into the library file as a “test page”. Any local changes will show up on that test page even without having published the file!

Bryan_BergerAuthor

@Sho_Kuwamoto I tried something like this. We have a few templates that are comprised of components and styles from multiple libraries. I pasted one in to our main “styles” library and changed some colors. The template is unaffected, because the color styles and components within that template first need to be republished in order for a color change to take affect. So, unless I misunderstood your workaround, I’m not sure there is a current solution for complex design systems constructed of multiple libraries.

Sho_Kuwamoto

Figmate

Ah. If the components and styles are coming from multiple libraries, it may not be possible to do what I was suggesting above.

Philly_Ran

I’ve just started using branching in my company and this is definitely a feature that will be handy. My design system, components and user flows span many different files so being able to publish branches to test these changes would be super valuable.

Boerner_Jason

I’d like to: branch a components file > make changes > test those changes in my design file by selecting the branch instead of the main as my library > commit or not commit > change my file back. Just seems great for testing.

Ben_Smeets

Active Member

Just keeping this beauty alive with again a (yearly) periodic reminder. Would still love to use branching (it would solve a couple of clear challenges for us in client-communication), but it’s still useless in it’s current state (as long as the linked libraries are not part of the branch…).