Figwright

What is Figwright?

Figwright connects an MCP server to a Figma plugin over a local WebSocket relay, so an AI agent — Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or any other MCP client — can work with Figma instead of just looking at it.

It works in both directions:

Read — turn a Figma selection into framework-aware code, grounded on faithful, de-duplicated design context (layout, typography, variables, components).

Write — author and edit the canvas directly: frames, text, auto-layout, styles, variables, components, whole screens.

Everything runs on your machine and talks to Figma through a plugin, so it needs no Figma Dev Mode seat and no paid tier.

Why Figwright

• Free — no Figma Dev Mode or paid seat. The official Dev Mode MCP is gated; Figwright isn't.
• Bidirectional — not read-only. 104 tools span reading and writing the canvas, so an agent can both implement designs and build them.
• Provider-first codegen — Figwright detects your real stack (framework + styling system) and reuses your existing components, tokens, and icons, instead of emitting generic markup you have to rewrite.
• Any MCP client — Claude Code, Cursor, and other MCP-capable agents all work the same way.
• Open & extensible — the read/write workflows ship as installable skills you can adopt or fork.

How it works

Your MCP client talks to the @figwright/mcp server over stdio; the server relays to the Figma plugin over a local WebSocket. Several clients can share one plugin — they elect a leader that owns the connection — and the transport is built to ride out dropped sockets:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MCP CLIENTS  —  one per agent                                       │
│ Claude Code · Cursor · Claude · any MCP-capable client              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                                   │  MCP protocol over stdio
                                   ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ @figwright/mcp  —  your client launches one; they elect a leader    │
│                                                                     │
│ LEADER   (owns the single plugin connection)                        │
│    • WebSocket relay · request idempotency                          │
│    • routes to the most-recently-active file                        │
│    • session resume · "busy ≠ dead" heartbeat                       │
│    • endpoints:  /ws (plugin) · /ping (health) · /rpc (followers)   │
│                                                                     │
│ FOLLOWERS                                                           │
│    • forward tool calls to the leader over HTTP /rpc                │
│    • take over automatically if the leader exits                    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                                   │  local WebSocket · msgpack (binary)
                                   ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ FIGMA  (desktop or browser)                                         │
│                                                                     │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Figwright plugin                                                │ │
│ │   • UI (Vue 3 iframe): WebSocket client + heartbeat             │ │
│ │   • sandbox: executes Figma Plugin API calls                    │ │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│                                                                     │
│              │ Figma Plugin API                                     │
│              ▼                                                      │
│            Canvas                                                   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

By design Figwright is provider-first: rather than a fixed compiler pipeline, the tools surface honest design context and let the model generate code that matches your codebase. The figma-codegen skill encodes this approach.

The plugin

The Figma-side plugin isn't a black box. It shows every call as it happens, lets you inspect the exact payload sent to the model, and surfaces its own connection health.

Activity — every tool call, with timing	Payload inspector — the exact data sent to the model
Context — file, page, and current selection	Debug — connection health and a one-click diagnostic bundle

Quick start

1. Add the server to your MCP client

For Claude Code, add this to your .mcp.json (other clients use the same shape):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "figwright": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@figwright/mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}

npx fetches and runs the published server — no global install needed.

2. Install the Figma plugin

The plugin isn't on the Figma Community marketplace yet, so install it from the latest release:

1. Download the plugin zip from the latest GitHub Release and unzip it.
2. In the Figma desktop app: Menu → Plugins → Development → Import plugin from manifest… and pick the unzipped manifest.json.

3. Connect

Open the Figwright plugin in Figma (Plugins → Development → Figwright). It connects to the local server automatically and shows Connected. Ask your agent to run ping to confirm the link.

4. (Optional) Install the skills

The skills make agents reach for Figwright at the right moment and follow the grounded workflows:

npx skills add awdr74100/figwright/skills

5. Try it

With a frame selected in Figma, prompt your agent:

Code this Figma selection as a React component.

or, the other direction:

Build a pricing section in Figma from this spec.

Skills

Agent skills orchestrate Figwright's tools. They're model-invoked — your agent loads one automatically when the task matches its description.

Skill	What it does
figma‑codegen	Turn a Figma selection into framework-aware code, grounded on your stack and existing components.
figma‑build	Build a Figma design from code or a description, reusing the file's existing components and styles.

Install across any supported agent with the skills CLI:

npx skills add awdr74100/figwright/skills      # both
npx skills add https://github.com/awdr74100/figwright/tree/main/skills/figma-codegen  # one

[!NOTE] Skills need the @figwright/mcp server connected — on their own they have no tools to drive.

Tools

Figwright exposes 104 MCP tools in three groups:

• Read — selection, document and node inspection, styles, variables, components, fonts, reactions, screenshots, original image-fill assets, and PDF export.
• Write — create and edit frames, text, shapes, auto-layout, effects, styles, variables, components (including authoring their boolean/text/instance-swap properties), pages, and reactions; plus a batch tool to apply many edits at once.
• Grounding — get_design_context for faithful, de-duplicated design context, and component_map / token_map / icon_map, which join Figma data to your codebase so codegen reuses what you already have; plus design_diff, which reports what changed in a design against a saved baseline so you update only the affected code.

[!TIP] Your MCP client lists every tool at connect time — that's always the authoritative, up-to-date catalog.

Requirements

• An MCP client (Claude Code, Cursor, …).
• Node.js 20.19+ or 22.12+ — the server runs via npx, as its own process, so this is independent of the Node version your project builds with. (This is the modern-Node baseline; Node 18/21 and 22.0–22.11 aren't supported.)
• Figma — the free tier is enough; the desktop app is needed to import the plugin in development.

FAQ

The server won't start — command not found, or it fails / disconnects with -32000 ("Connection closed").

Both come down to how your MCP client launches the server: it spawns the command directly, not through your interactive shell, so it inherits none of what your shell sets up. That bites hardest when Node is managed by a version manager (fnm, nvm, asdf, volta, mise), since those configure PATH and npm from shell hooks that only run in a real terminal. It isn't specific to Figwright — it affects any npx-launched MCP server. There are two symptoms, with two different fixes.

command not found — the client can't find npx / node on its PATH.

• Use an absolute path. In a normal terminal run which npx (or which node) and use that full path as command:

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "figwright": {
        "command": "/Users/you/.local/share/fnm/node-versions/v24.x.x/installation/bin/npx",
        "args": ["-y", "@figwright/mcp@latest"]
      }
    }
  }
  

• Or pass PATH through env. If your client supports a per-server env, add your version manager's bin directory to env.PATH.

-32000 / "Connection closed" / it just never connects — npx runs, but the server exits before the handshake.

npx … @latest re-resolves the package from the registry on every launch. In a directly-spawned environment that step can fail or stall — empty or different npm config, a corporate proxy or private registry that isn't configured there, or no network — so the process dies before MCP connects and the client reports the connection as closed. (A missing node for the binary's shebang lands here too.)

The fix is to install the package so launch needs no registry fetch:

• As a project dependency — the quickest unblock. Install it, then drop @latest from your config. The @latest tag is what forces the registry round-trip; without it, npx uses the copy already in node_modules (a project-scoped config like Claude Code's .mcp.json runs from your project root):

  pnpm add -D @figwright/mcp   # or: npm i -D @figwright/mcp
  

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "figwright": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "@figwright/mcp"]
      }
    }
  }
  

• Or globally, pinned to the binary. Install once, then point command straight at it — no npx, no per-launch resolution. Use the absolute path from which figwright-mcp:

  npm i -g @figwright/mcp
  which figwright-mcp
  

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "figwright": {
        "command": "/absolute/path/to/figwright-mcp"
      }
    }
  }
  

The plugin stays on "Waiting" and never connects.

The server is launched by your MCP client, so it only runs while that client is open. Check that:

• your MCP client is running and has Figwright configured (try a ping);
• the plugin is open in the same Figma app on the same machine (the relay is local-only, 127.0.0.1);
• nothing is blocking local loopback connections (some firewall / security tools do).

Do I need a paid Figma plan or Dev Mode?

No. Figwright talks to Figma through a plugin, so the free tier is enough — no Dev Mode seat or paid tier required.

Can more than one agent use the same plugin at once?

Yes. Several MCP servers can share a single plugin via leader/follower election — one leads, the others follow, with a graceful handoff if the leader goes away.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to get set up and open a pull request, and AGENTS.md for the architecture, repo layout, tech stack, and conventions.

What's in the name

figwright follows the -wright tradition — an old English word for a maker or craftsman: a playwright writes plays, a shipwright builds ships, a wheelwright, wheels. The name is a nod to Playwright, which automates the browser. Where Playwright drives the browser, Figwright drives Figma — a maker of designs that both reads the canvas and crafts work back onto it.

License

MIT © Roya