Advanced Project Permissions for design systems | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)
Figma introduced Advanced Project Permissions to give design-system teams finer control over who can edit or access projects. Available to paying Professional Teams, the feature adds view-only and invite-only options alongside the existing team-wide editing model. It is designed to protect systems from accidental changes while allowing maintainers to develop and test privately.
Why Design Systems Need More Control
- Design-system maintainers often need to work privately before releasing components to the broader organization.
- Once published, the system should be protected from accidental edits by designers who primarily consume its components.
- Figma’s Team Library enabled cross-file and cross-team component sharing, but additional project-level privacy and access controls were needed.
New Project Permission Options
- Professional Team editors can choose one of three access settings when creating a project:
- Everyone on the team can edit
- Everyone on the team can view
- Invite-only access for selected collaborators
- Existing projects can be updated by opening the Share dialog and changing their permissions.
- The feature creates a boundary between design-system “maintainers” and “viewers.”
Effects on Team Workflows
- View-only permissions reduce the risk of well-intentioned team members modifying carefully maintained components.
- Invite-only projects allow maintainers to experiment and refine a system before wider deployment.
- Larger teams may give individual designers fewer opportunities to directly change the system, depending on the balance between maintainers and viewers.
- Figma was exploring pull-request-like workflows so designers could suggest changes while maintainers retained ownership.
Overall, the permissions provide a practical foundation for managing robust design systems: restrict editing to maintainers, use view-only access for consumers, and consider structured contribution workflows for future improvements.