Coinbase's Kuerschner ties 22.5% token savings to feeding AI its design system

Coinbase ran Code Connect, Figma's tool linking design tokens to code components, against the same design three times and cut AI token costs 22.5% and implementation time 22%, according to Technical Lead Erich Kuerschner. Icon hallucinations, where agents invented components like a Stepper from two progress bars, disappeared. The shift reflects a broader move: instead of typing longer prompts, teams feed models structured tokens, component libraries, and markdown rule files like COMPONENTS.md. Apple's former R&D design lead Anshu Chimala found this fixes inconsistency but not sameness; models still default to purple gradients unless someone deliberately forces variation. Structure kills guessing, but taste still requires a person pushing against the model's defaults.