Design systems don't erode all at once. They erode one deadline-pressured exception at a time. We run a short audit before starting any new feature to catch drift before it compounds.
The four questions we ask
Does this need a new component, or does an existing one already solve it? If it's genuinely new, does it fit the existing token system, or are we about to introduce a one-off color? Who else on the team needs to know this pattern now exists? And finally — will this still make sense to someone reading the codebase in a year?
design systems