‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Figma restricts MCP access to whitelisted clients, excluding Pi

187 points · 106 comments · thdr

  1. miguel-muniz · · focus · HN ↗
    For context: Figma has two MCPs. The local "dev" MCP that works through the Desktop app, and the remote MCP that requires a connection to Figma. Companies need to be whitelisted to use the remote MCP, which is the only one that allows agents edit access to Figma documents.

    I only found out about Figma's limitation when I was trying to add the remote MCP server to GitHub Copilot Desktop and kept running into errors. Turns out they whitelisted GitHub Copilot CLI but not the Desktop app and had put a pause on enabling any more vendors. Eventually someone (not sure which side) got it working.

    Kind of strange to limit edit access only to the Remote MCP when their competitors like Pen[1] and Paper[2] allow any local agent to edit.

    [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pen.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pen.dev&#x2F;

    [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paper.design&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paper.design&#x2F;

    1. cellularmitosis · · focus · HN ↗
      I found figma’s remote MCP to be a poor fit for iOS development (it sets tokens on fire and gives Claude the details as React+Tailwind) and got much better results by having Claude build a set of “lens” tools around their REST API (“give me all of the fonts”, “give me the layout dimensions”, “give me the colors”, etc).

      The key to making it token efficient was allowing Claude to invent its own plaintext markup format for the lens output.

      1. btown · · focus · HN ↗
        Is this the API surface you&#x27;re referring to?

        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.figma.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;rest-api&#x2F;file-endpoints&#x2F;#get-file-nodes-endpoint" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.figma.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;rest-api&#x2F;file-endpoints&#x2F;#g...

        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.figma.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;rest-api&#x2F;file-node-types&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.figma.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;rest-api&#x2F;file-node-types&#x2F;

        Seems read-only, which means we&#x27;re stuck with the MCP for updating Figma files... unless you&#x27;ve found a workaround there too?

        1. joombaga · · focus · HN ↗
          You can use their plugin API.

          <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.figma.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;plugins&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.figma.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;plugins&#x2F;

          This is what I use. Load a little shim plugin and control it with whatever you want. I made the plugin poll an http server that listens for commands.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.