alt Hacker NewsFor context: Figma has two MCPs. The local "dev" MCP that works through the Desktop app, and the remote MCP that requires a connection to Figma. Companies need to be whitelisted to use the remote MCP, which is the only one that allows agents edit access to Figma documents.
I only found out about Figma's limitation when I was trying to add the remote MCP server to GitHub Copilot Desktop and kept running into errors. Turns out they whitelisted GitHub Copilot CLI but not the Desktop app and had put a pause on enabling any more vendors. Eventually someone (not sure which side) got it working.
Kind of strange to limit edit access only to the Remote MCP when their competitors like Pen[1] and Paper[2] allow any local agent to edit.
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I found figma’s remote MCP to be a poor fit for iOS development (it sets tokens on fire and gives Claude the details as React+Tailwind) and got much better results by having Claude build a set of “lens” tools around their REST API (“give me all of the fonts”, “give me the layout dimensions”, “give me the colors”, etc).
The key to making it token efficient was allowing Claude to invent its own plaintext markup format for the lens output.
They're realizing what most product companies aren't yet (at least not openly): AI subsumes products.
Most companies seem to still be in denial about it, and hope that if they add some more AI into their product, or do it just right, it will make sense. But it won't. AI is destined to sit on the outside, and products to be reduced into a bag of tools for AI to call.
Taking away write access from AI tools outside their contractual control is an expected knee-jerk reaction, but it'll probably just hasten the product's slide into irrelevancy by ceding ground to competition (that will ultimately share the same fate, too, but is still in denial about it).
I’ve been using a 3rd party MCP that uses a desktop plugin as a bridge, it allows for llm driven design, export, etc.
https://github.com/southleft/figma-console-mcp/tree/main
No affiliation, just found it useful.
last time i used figma you also need to pay a dev seat PER team to use the MCP
To speak more broadly, Figma is in a really tough spot right now. I see more and more designers in my circle saying they are skipping design tools entirely to prototype in code or ship directly in their product's code base. Honestly I find myself doing the same.
Figma's main value used to be in providing designers a canvas to iterate and explore ideas since the majority of designers did not code, but AI has completely changed that.
I fear Figma's reluctance to integrate with all the popular AI tools might actually accelerate their decline. AI provides so much value, that I would rather base my software purchasing decisions around what is compatible with my AI of choice rather than pick an AI that is compatible with Figma.