Restructure variables for scalability, simplicity, and AI compatibility

[lavinia-chrystal]

Simplify and standardise EDS variables to improve usability, enable analytics (component usage stats), and ensure smooth export/import into Token Studio and other tooling. This reduces vendor lock-in, supports citizen developers/AI-driven workflows, and unlocks work on higher-level patterns (tables, guidelines, etc.).

Background:
Current variables are overly complex and inconsistent, resulting in:

• lengthy onboarding of new team members
• divergence from common design system patterns (eg. difficult to export/import into Token Studio)
• difficulties viewing component/token usage stats.
• progress on more complex components (patterns, tables, and governance)
• inconsistency between design + code
• blocks to AI-driven and low-code workflows — complexity prevents reliable automation and programmatic use by AI agents and citizen developers, causing inconsistent outputs and potential increased token usage.

Objectives / goals (Work in progress)

• Define a simplified token structure aligned with industry best practices.
• Enable component/token usage tracking (within Figma and/or via plugin export)
• Document standards, governance, and onboarding materials to reduce ramp-up time.

[claude]

Thanks for opening this! There are several existing issues that seem closely related to this proposal — you may want to check them out for context or to coordinate scope:

• 🎨 Refine the EDS Colour & Token System #4740 — 🎨 Refine the EDS Colour & Token System (open): epic covering token naming reviews, density mode tokens, and consistency improvements — significant overlap with the goals here.
• 🧩 Re‑evaluate token naming conventions #4744 — 🧩 Re‑evaluate token naming conventions (open): directly about reviewing naming patterns and proposing improvements.
• Tokens Studio — exploration and evaluation #4822 — Tokens Studio — exploration and evaluation (open): evaluates how Token Studio fits the EDS workflow, including export/import questions raised here.
• 🔄 Token Studio integrated into development workflow for algorithmic token generation #4289 — 🔄 Token Studio integrated into development workflow for algorithmic token generation (open): Q1 2026 OKR epic on Token Studio integration.
• 📚 Update token documentation #4745 — 📚 Update token documentation (open): covers the documentation/onboarding goal mentioned in the objectives.

This comment was generated by an LLM and may be inaccurate. Please verify that the linked issues are actually relevant.