Google, Atlassian, and Figma have each started shipping decision rationale alongside their design systems, not just components. The argument: a system without documented reasoning is a collection of artifacts waiting to be misused.
The piece challenges the assumption that consistency comes from shared UI kits. It comes from shared understanding. Components are the output. The thinking behind them is the actual system, and most teams never ship that part.
The unresolved problem is the one worth reading for: no tooling enforces the rationale. You can document why a button works a certain way, but nothing stops an engineer or an AI code generator from ignoring it. That gap between intent and implementation is where design systems quietly fail.
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