Style Dictionary Transforms for Tokens Studio

Table of contents

• Installation
• Getting Started
  • Using the transforms
  • Custom Transform Group
  • Options
• Theming
  • Themes complete example
  • Multi-dimensional theming
• Transforms
• Troubleshooting

This library is currently in beta.

This package contains custom transforms for Style-Dictionary, to work with Design Tokens that are exported from Tokens Studio:

Generic:

• Expands composition tokens into multiple, optionally also does so for typography, border and shadow tokens -> parser
• Optionally excludes parent keys from your tokens file, e.g. when using single-file export from Tokens Studio Figma plugin -> parser
• Maps token descriptions to comments -> ts/descriptionToComment
• Check and evaluate Math expressions (transitive) -> ts/resolveMath
• Transform dimensions tokens to have px as a unit when missing (transitive) -> ts/size/px
• Transform opacity from % to number between 0 and 1 -> ts/opacity
• Transform lineheight from % to unitless (150% -> 1.5) -> ts/size/lineheight
• Transform fontweight from keynames to fontweight numbers (100, 200, 300 ... 900) -> ts/typography/fontWeight
• Transform color modifiers from Tokens Studio to color values -> ts/color/modifiers

CSS:

• Transform letterspacing from % to em -> ts/size/css/letterspacing
• Transform colors to rgba() format -> ts/color/css/hexrgba
• Transform font family into valid CSS, adding single quotes if necessary -> ts/typography/css/fontFamily
• Transform typography objects to CSS shorthand -> ts/typography/css/shorthand
• Transform Tokens Studio shadow objects to CSS shadow shorthand -> ts/shadow/css/shorthand
• Transform border objects to CSS border shorthand -> ts/border/css/shorthand

Android:

• Transform typography objects to Android Compose shorthand -> ts/typography/compose/shorthand

Registers the generic and CSS transforms as a transform group called tokens-studio.

Installation

With NPM:

npm install @tokens-studio/sd-transforms

Usage

Note: this library is available both in CJS and ESM

const { registerTransforms } = require('@tokens-studio/sd-transforms');
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary');

// will register them on StyleDictionary object
// that is installed as a dependency of this package.
registerTransforms(StyleDictionary);

const sd = StyleDictionary.extend({
  source: ['**/*.json'], // <-- make sure to have this match your token files!!!
  platforms: {
    css: {
      transformGroup: 'tokens-studio',
      transforms: ['name/kebab'], // <-- add a token name transform for generating token names, default is camel
      buildPath: 'build/css/',
      files: [
        {
          destination: 'variables.css',
          format: 'css/variables',
        },
      ],
    },
  },
});

sd.cleanAllPlatforms();
sd.buildAllPlatforms();

You can also import as ES Modules if needed.

To run it use the following command

node build-output.js

From Style-Dictionary 4.0.0-prerelease.18, transformGroup and transforms can now be combined in a platform inside your config.

Using the transforms

{
  "source": ["**/*.tokens.json"],
  "platforms": {
    "css": {
      "transformGroup": "tokens-studio",
      "transforms": ["name/kebab"],
      "buildPath": "build/css/",
      "files": [
        {
          "destination": "variables.css",
          "format": "css/variables"
        }
      ]
    },
    "css": {
      "transforms": ["ts/size/px", "ts/opacity", "name/kebab"],
      "buildPath": "build/css/",
      "files": [
        {
          "destination": "variables.css",
          "format": "css/variables"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

More fine-grained control is possible, every transformation is available as a raw JavaScript function for you to create your own Style-Dictionary transformer out of.

const { transformDimension } = require('@tokens-studio/sd-transforms');
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary');

StyleDictionary.registerTransform({
  name: 'my/size/px',
  type: 'value',
  transitive: true,
  matcher: token => ['fontSizes', 'dimension', 'borderRadius', 'spacing'].includes(token.type),
  transformer: token => transformDimension(token.value),
});

Custom Transform Group

From Style-Dictionary 4.0.0-prerelease.18, transformGroup and transforms can now be combined in a platform inside your config.

You can create a custom transformGroup that includes the individual transforms from this package. If you wish to use the transformGroup, but adjust or remove a few transforms, your best option is to create a custom transform group:

const { transforms } = require('@tokens-studio/sd-transforms');
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary');

// Register custom tokens-studio transform group
// without 'px' being added to numbers without a unit
// and also adding 'name/constant' for the token names
StyleDictionary.registerTransformGroup({
  name: 'custom/tokens-studio',
  transforms: [...transforms, 'name/constant'].filter(transform => transform !== 'ts/size/px'),
});

Options

You can pass options to the registerTransforms function.

registerTransforms(StyleDictionary, {
  expand: {
    composition: false,
    typography: true,
    // Note: when using Style-Dictionary v4.0.0-prerelease.2 or higher, filePath no longer gets passed
    // as an argument, because preprocessors work on the full dictionary rather than per file (parsers)
    border: (token, filePath) =>
      token.value.width !== 0 && filePath.startsWith(path.resolve('tokens/core')),
    shadow: false,
  },
  excludeParentKeys: true,
  'ts/color/modifiers': {
    format: 'hex',
  },
});

Options:

| name | type | required | default | description | | ----------------------------- | ------------------------ | -------- | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | excludeParentKeys | boolean | ❌ | false | Whether or not to exclude parent keys from your token files | | alwaysAddFontStyle | boolean | ❌ | false | Whether or not to always add a 'normal' fontStyle property to typography tokens which do not have explicit fontStyle | | expand | boolean | ExpandOptions | ❌ | See props below | false to not register the parser at all. By default, expands composition tokens. Optionally, border, shadow and typography as well. | | expand.composition | boolean | ExpandFilter | ❌ | true | Whether or not to expand compositions. Also allows a filter callback function to conditionally expand per token/filePath | | expand.typography | boolean | ExpandFilter | ❌ | false | Whether or not to expand typography. Also allows a filter callback function to conditionally expand per token/filePath | | expand.shadow | boolean | ExpandFilter | ❌ | false | Whether or not to expand shadows. Also allows a filter callback function to conditionally expand per token/filePath | | expand.border | boolean | ExpandFilter | ❌ | false | Whether or not to expand borders. Also allows a filter callback function to conditionally expand per token/filePath | | ['ts/color/modifiers'] | ColorModifierOptions | ❌ | See props below | Color modifier options | | ['ts/color/modifiers'].format | ColorModifierFormat | ❌ | undefined | Color modifier output format override ('hex' | 'hsl' | 'lch' | 'p3' | 'srgb'), uses local format or modifier space as default |

Note: you can also import and use the parseTokens function to run the parsing steps on your tokens object manually. Handy if you have your own parsers set up (e.g. for JS files), and you want the parser-based features like composites-expansion to work there too.

Theming

Themes: complete example

You might be using Themes in the PRO version of Tokens Studio.

Here's a full example of how you can use this in conjunction with Style Dictionary and sd-transforms:

Run this script:

const { registerTransforms } = require('@tokens-studio/sd-transforms');
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary');
const { promises } = require('fs');

registerTransforms(StyleDictionary, {
  /* options here if needed */
});

async function run() {
  const $themes = JSON.parse(await promises.readFile('$themes.json', 'utf-8'));
  const configs = $themes.map(theme => ({
    source: Object.entries(theme.selectedTokenSets)
      .filter(([, val]) => val !== 'disabled')
      .map(([tokenset]) => `${tokenset}.json`),
    platforms: {
      css: {
        transformGroup: 'tokens-studio',
        transforms: ['name/kebab'],
        files: [
          {
            destination: `vars-${theme.name}.css`,
            format: 'css/variables',
          },
        ],
      },
    },
  }));

  configs.forEach(cfg => {
    const sd = StyleDictionary.extend(cfg);
    sd.cleanAllPlatforms(); // optionally, cleanup files first..
    sd.buildAllPlatforms();
  });
}

run();

Multi-dimensional Theming

If you're using Tokens Studio multi-dimensional theming, you'll have to run some logic to create permutations of those multiple dimensions of themes. We export a function called permutateThemes that allows passing the data from your $themes.json, and will give back an object with all the different permutations.

For example, consider the following multi-dimensional theme hierarchy (Group > Theme > TokenSet):

mode
  |-- light
  |     `-- core, light, theme
  `-- dark
        `-- core, dark, theme

brand
  |-- casual
  |     `-- core, casual
  `-- business
        `-- core, business

Here we have two groups:

1. mode: has two themes light & dark
2. brand: has two themes casual & business

Running permutateThemes on these themes will generate 4 theme combinations:

1. light_casual
2. dark_casual
3. light_business
4. dark_business

See details below:

const { permutateThemes } = require('@tokens-studio/sd-transforms');
const fs = require('fs');

/**
 * Input:
 * [
 *  {
 *    name: 'light'
 *    group: 'mode',
 *    selectedTokensets: {
 *      'core': 'source',
 *      'light': 'enabled',
 *      'theme': 'enabled'
 *    }
 *  },
 *  {
 *    name: 'dark'
 *    group: 'mode',
 *    selectedTokensets: {
 *      'core': 'source',
 *      'dark': 'enabled',
 *      'theme': 'enabled'
 *    }
 *  },
 *  {
 *    name: 'casual'
 *    group: 'brand',
 *    selectedTokensets: {
 *      'core': 'source',
 *      'casual': 'enabled'
 *    }
 *  },
 *  {
 *    name: 'business'
 *    group: 'brand',
 *    selectedTokensets: {
 *      'core': 'source',
 *      'business': 'enabled'
 *    }
 *  }
 * ]
 *
 * Output:
 * {
 *   light_casual: ['core', 'light', 'theme', 'casual'],
 *   dark_casual: ['core', 'dark', 'theme', 'casual'],
 *   light_business: ['core', 'light', 'theme', 'business'],
 *   dark_business: ['core', 'dark', 'theme', 'business'],
 * }
 */
permutateThemes(JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('$themes.json', 'utf-8')), { separator: '_' });

Note that it is a best practice to generate standalone output files for each theme combination. In the example above, we should generate 4 standalone CSS file light_casual.css, dark_casual.css, light_business.css and dark_business.css. We can then switch between them to change themes. Avoid generating all this output in a single file and trying to select different sections of the file. This will increase the file size as the number of theme combinations grows resulting in increased load times.

Full example with multi-dimensional themes:

const { registerTransforms, permutateThemes } = require('@tokens-studio/sd-transforms');
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary');
const { promises } = require('fs');

registerTransforms(StyleDictionary, {
  /* options here if needed */
});

async function run() {
  const $themes = JSON.parse(await promises.readFile('$themes.json', 'utf-8'));
  const themes = permutateThemes($themes, { separator: '_' });
  const configs = Object.entries(themes).map(([name, tokensets]) => ({
    source: tokensets.map(tokenset => `${tokenset}.json`),
    platforms: {
      css: {
        transformGroup: 'tokens-studio',
        transforms: ['name/kebab'],
        files: [
          {
            destination: `vars-${name}.css`,
            format: 'css/variables',
          },
        ],
      },
    },
  }));

  configs.forEach(cfg => {
    const sd = StyleDictionary.extend(cfg);
    sd.cleanAllPlatforms(); // optionally, cleanup files first..
    sd.buildAllPlatforms();
  });
}

run();

You can find a variation of this example here. It outputs a CSS file for every theme combination for every component, e.g. button-business-blue.css, date-picker-business-blue.css and so on. This caters to use cases where component-level tokens as required, e.g. when implementing Web Components.

Transforms

ts/descriptionToComment

This transform maps token descriptions into comments.

matches: All tokens that have a description property.

before

{
  "token": {
    ...
    "description": "Some description about the token",
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    ...
    "description": "Some description about the token",
    "comment": "Some description about the token",
  }
}

ts/resolveMath

This transform checks and evaluates math expressions

matches: All tokens that have string values.

before

{
  "token-one": {
    ...
    "value": "4*1.5px 4*1.5px 4*1.5px"
  },
  "token-two": {
    ...
    "value": "4 * 7"
  }
}

after

{
  "token-one": {
    ...
    "value": "6px 6px 6px"
  },
  "token-two": {
    ...
    "value": "28"
  }
}

ts/size/px

This transform adds px as a unit when dimension-like tokens do not have a unit.

matches: token.type is one of ['sizing', 'spacing', 'borderRadius', 'borderWidth', 'fontSizes', 'dimension']

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "dimension",
    "value": 4
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "type": "dimension",
    "value": "4px"
  }
}

ts/opacity

This transforms opacity token values declared with % into a number between 0 and 1.

matches: token.type is 'opacity'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "opacity",
    "value": "50%"
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "type": "opacity",
    "value": 0.5
  }
}

ts/size/lineheight

This transforms line-height token values declared with % into a unitless value.

matches: token.type is 'lineHeights'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "lineHeights",
    "value": "50%"
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "type": "lineHeights",
    "value": 0.5
  }
}

ts/typography/fontWeight

This transforms fontweight from keynames to fontweight numbers.

matches: token.type is 'fontWeights'

before

{
  "token-one": {
    "type": "fontWeights",
    "value": "Bold"
  },
  "token-two": {
    "type": "fontWeights",
    "value": "Light"
  }
}

after

{
  "token-one": {
    "type": "fontWeights",
    "value": "700"
  },
  "token-two": {
    "type": "fontWeights",
    "value": "300"
  }
}

ts/color/modifiers

This transforms color modifiers from Tokens Studio to color values.

matches: token.type is 'color' and has token.$extensions['studio.tokens'].modify

before

{
  "token-one": {
    "value": "#C14242",
    "type": "color",
    "$extensions": {
      "studio.tokens": {
        "modify": {
          "type": "lighten",
          "value": "0.2",
          "space": "srgb"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "token-two": {
    "value": "#C14242",
    "type": "color",
    "$extensions": {
      "studio.tokens": {
        "modify": {
          "type": "darken",
          "value": "0.2",
          "space": "hsl"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

after

{
  "token-one": {
    "value": "rgb(80.5% 40.7% 40.7%)",
    "type": "color"
  },
  "token-two": {
    "value": "hsl(0 50.6% 40.6%)",
    "type": "color"
  }
}

ts/size/css/letterspacing

This transforms letter-spacing token values declared with % to a value with em.

matches: token.type is 'letterSpacing'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "letterSpacing",
    "value": "50%"
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "type": "letterSpacing",
    "value": "0.5em"
  }
}

ts/color/css/hexrgba

This transforms color token values with Figma's "hex code RGBA" into actual rgba() format

matches: token.type is 'color'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "color",
    "value": "rgba(#ABC123, 0.5)"
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "type": "color",
    "value": "rgba(171, 193, 35, 0.5)"
  }
}

ts/typography/css/fontFamily

This transforms font-family token values into valid CSS, adding single quotes if necessary.

matches: token.type is 'fontFamilies'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "fontFamilies",
    "value": "Arial Black, Times New Roman, Foo, sans-serif"
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "type": "fontFamilies",
    "value": "'Arial Black', 'Times New Roman', Foo, sans-serif"
  }
}

ts/typography/css/shorthand

This transforms typography tokens into a valid CSS shorthand

matches: token.type is 'typography'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "typography",
    "value": {
      "fontWeight": "500",
      "fontSize": "20px",
      "lineHeight": "1.5",
      "fontFamily": "Arial"
    }
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "value": "500 20px/1.5 Arial"
  }
}

ts/shadow/css/shorthand

This transforms shadow tokens into a valid CSS shadow shorthand

matches: token.type is 'boxShadow'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "boxShadow",
    "value": {
      "x": "5px",
      "y": "3px",
      "blur": "6px",
      "spread": "2px",
      "color": "#000000"
    }
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "value": "5px 3px 6px 2px #000000"
  }
}

ts/border/css/shorthand

This transforms border tokens into a valid CSS border shorthand

matches: token.type is 'border'

before

{
  "token": {
    "type": "border",
    "value": {
      "width": "5",
      "style": "dashed",
      "color": "rgba(#000000, 1)"
    }
  }
}

after

{
  "token": {
    "value": "5px dashed rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"
  }
}

Not sure how to fix your issue?

Create a reproduction by:-

1. Open the configurator tool link
2. Upload your tokens and add your style dictionary config and transforms
3. Copy the URL as it will include your settings
4. Join our Slack link
5. Open style-dictionary-configurator channel
6. Create a thread about your issue and paste your reproduction link inside it