Design tokens are platform-agnostic data representing visual design decisions: colours, spacings, font sizes, shadows, border radii. Stored as JSON or YAML; transformed into per-platform formats (CSS variables for web, Swift constants for iOS, XML for Android).
The architectural value: one source updates everywhere. Change the brand primary colour in tokens; the new value propagates through Tailwind config, iOS app, Android app, Figma library on the next build.
The 2026 standard tooling: Style Dictionary (Amazon), Tokens Studio (Figma ecosystem). Layered token architecture (primitive + semantic + component-specific) survives brand evolution better than direct-value tokens. See our design system reference architecture.