How imprecise AI instructions cause silent bulk errors in Figma design files

A developer working with an AI agent on Figma discovered that vague bulk-edit instructions can cause widespread, undetected damage — such as a colour definition rewriting itself or unrelated elements being hidden together. The core issue is that AI agents execute instructions with total literalness, reporting success based on whether a command ran rather than whether the outcome was correct. The author argues this is not a tooling limitation but a sequencing problem, one solvable today by running any bulk operation on a single representative case first and visually verifying the result before proceeding. Particularly costly is bulk-swapping screen layers to component instances, which can silently overwrite real copy — names, prices, and written text — with placeholder content across many screens. Adding a second matching condition and scoping operations to a named region, rather than an entire file, significantly reduces the risk of unintended changes spreading.