AI Data Extractor — Figma Plugin

A Figma plugin that extracts design structure, layout properties, text content, and visual assets from your selected layers — packaged into a structured ZIP archive optimized for AI and machine learning interpretation.

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What It Does

Select any frame or group of layers in Figma, click Extract, and the plugin will:

1. Traverse the full node tree of your selection, capturing the parent-child hierarchy
2. Extract metadata for every node — dimensions, position, fills, strokes, effects, opacity, border radius, and layout properties (auto-layout mode, padding, spacing, alignment)
3. Capture text content inline, including font family, size, line height, letter spacing, and alignment
4. Export visual assets — PNG for every non-text node, plus SVG for nodes that don't contain text children
5. Package everything into a downloadable .zip archive with a structured data.md file
6. Copy the Developer System Prompt to your clipboard automatically. This prompt instructs code-generation AI agents on how to strictly implement the extracted design with zero guesswork.

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Output Structure

The generated ZIP follows a predictable, hierarchical folder structure:

figma-ai-extraction.zip
├── data.md                          # Full hierarchical tree + properties
└── <TopLevelNode>/                  # One folder per selected root node
    ├── <NodeName>.png
    ├── <NodeName>.svg
    └── children/
        └── <ChildNode>/
            ├── <ChildNode>.png
            ├── <ChildNode>.svg
            └── children/
                └── ...              # Recursively nested

data.md

The markdown file contains:

• AI Interpretation Guide — instructions for how an AI model should parse the data
• Hierarchical Tree — indented list of every node with:
  • Node name, type, and folder path
  • Inline text content (for text nodes)
  • Raw properties JSON (dimensions, position, fills, strokes, effects, layout config, typography)

Asset Export Rules

Node Type	PNG	SVG	Reasoning
Text node	✗	✗	Text content is captured inline in data.md
Node with text children	✓	✗	PNG preserves visual context; SVG skipped to avoid exposing raw text paths
Node without text	✓	✓	Both formats exported for maximum flexibility

Developer System Prompt

To make it seamless to hand off the extracted data to frontend AI agents (e.g., code-generation models), the plugin automatically copies a specialized Developer System Prompt to your clipboard during the ZIP extraction.

This prompt enforces:

• Strict Structural Fidelity: Instructs the agent to prioritize the exact coordinates, properties, and tree structures in data.md over generic CSS styling defaults or auto-generated mockups.
• Asset Pipeline Rules: Directs the agent to organize visual assets into the target project's /assets/images/ directory and map them correctly in the code.
• Visual Verification: Tells the agent to cross-verify SVG assets against matching PNG references to ensure no bounding boxes or layout boxes are missing.
• Zero Guesswork: Prohibits the agent from correcting typos, changing text cases, or merging styles from child nodes up to parent containers.

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Installation

To install and load the plugin locally in Figma:

1. Download the project or clone this repository to your local machine.
2. Open your terminal and navigate to the project directory.
3. Install the dependencies by running:

   npm i
   

4. Build the project to compile TypeScript:

   npm run build
   

5. Open Figma (either in the browser or the desktop app).
6. Navigate to Plugins > Development > Import plugin from manifest... (or search for it under plugins menu).
7. Select the manifest.json file located in the root folder of this project.

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How to Use

Once the plugin is installed:

1. Select a frame or layer group from your Figma design canvas.
2. Open the plugin (under Plugins > Development > AI Data Extractor) and click Extract Selection.
3. Download the generated ZIP file (figma-ai-extraction.zip) once the process is complete.
4. Extract the ZIP archive into a directory.
5. Provide the extracted folder to your AI agent model so it has access to data.md and the exported visual assets, then paste the copied prompt from your clipboard directly into the chat to instruct the agent model on how to implement the code.

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Limits

• 500 node maximum per extraction — the plugin counts all nodes (including deeply nested children) and will show an error if the selection exceeds this limit. This prevents performance issues with very large component trees.

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Technical Details

Detail	Value
Figma API	1.0.0
Editor	Figma (design files)
UI Size	320 × 180 px
ZIP Library	JSZip 3.10.1 (loaded via CDN)
Network Access	cdnjs.cloudflare.com only

Architecture

• code.ts — Plugin backend running in Figma's sandbox. Handles node traversal, property extraction, and asset export via the Figma Plugin API.
• ui.html — Plugin frontend. Manages UI state (idle → processing → exporting → complete/error), generates the ZIP archive using JSZip, and triggers the browser download.
• manifest.json — Plugin configuration and permissions.

Node Position Handling

Positions are calculated relative to the top-level selected node (not the canvas). The root node is always positioned at (0, 0), and all children use offsets from the root's absoluteBoundingBox. This makes the output self-contained and canvas-position-independent.

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States

The plugin UI cycles through these states:

State	Icon	Description
Idle	📦	Waiting for user to click "Extract Selection"
Processing	🔄	Traversing nodes and exporting assets
Exporting	🔄 + progress bar	Generating the ZIP archive
Complete	✅	Download finished successfully
Error	⚠️	Something went wrong (with message)

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Development

Build

Compile TypeScript to JavaScript:

npx tsc code.ts --outDir . --target ES6

Project Files

├── manifest.json    # Plugin manifest
├── code.ts          # Source (TypeScript)
├── code.js          # Compiled output (loaded by Figma)
├── ui.html          # Plugin UI
└── README.md        # This file