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DESIGN.md Anatomy: How Tokens and Prose Work Together

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A DESIGN.md has two parts: YAML front matter with machine-readable design tokens, and a markdown body with human-readable rationale. Tokens give an agent exact values; prose gives it the rules. Pairing them is the format's core insight. The front matter holds your colors, typography, spacing, rounded corners and components as typed values. It opens and closes with three dashes: --- colors: primary: "#1A1C1E" surface: "#FFFFFF" spacing: sm: 8px md: 16px --- This gives the agent precise values to use directly.

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