Figma auto-layout is actually flexbox

For a year I treated auto-layout as a Figma feature. Then I noticed the properties panel was flexbox with different words, and my handoffs stopped being arguments.

The translation table

• Direction is flex-direction
• Spacing between items is gap
• Padding is padding
• Hug contents is fit-content
• Fill container is flex: 1

Once the vocabulary lines up, a design file stops being a picture of an interface and starts being a specification for one.

What it fixes

Designers stop producing layouts that cannot exist. Engineers stop guessing at intent. Nobody has the conversation about whether that gap is sixteen or twenty pixels, because the file already answered it.