Style rules

Detect orphaned, duplicate, and unused styles

Style rules catch layers that have drifted away from your design system. When a fill, stroke, text style, or effect is not connected to a shared style or variable, it becomes an orphan — a hardcoded value that will not update when your design system changes. These are typically the most common findings in any file.

Why orphaned styles matter

Orphaned styles cause three recurring problems:

1. Handoff drift. Developers see a hex color like #2563EA instead of a semantic token like primary/500. They hardcode the hex, and when your brand color changes, their code does not update.
2. Maintenance cost. When you update primary/500 from blue to indigo, orphaned layers keep the old blue. You have to find and fix each one manually.
3. Inconsistency. Two designers on the same file might use slightly different blues (#2563EB vs #2563EA). Without style connections, there is no single source of truth.

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Orphaned Fills

Default: On | Severity: warn

Detects solid fills that are not linked to a paint style or color variable. If 47 layers share the same orphaned blue, they appear as a single grouped finding rather than 47 separate ones.

What it detects

Imagine you draw a rectangle and set its fill to #2563EB by typing the hex code directly. That fill is now orphaned — it is not connected to any style or variable. If your team later changes Brand/Primary from #2563EB to #4F46E5, this rectangle stays blue while everything else turns indigo.

LintKit groups all nodes sharing the same color (by RGB + opacity) into a single finding. For example:

12 layers use fill color #2563EB (opacity 100%) without a linked style. Closest match: Brand/Primary (Delta E: 0.3)

When to enable it

Enable this rule (it is on by default) whenever your file uses paint styles or color variables. Disable it only if you are working on an early exploration file where styles have not been defined yet.

How to fix findings

1. Open the finding in the inspector panel

   Click the finding to see all affected layers. Click any layer name to select it on the canvas.

2. Choose a fix strategy

   LintKit offers several options depending on what matches exist:

   • Link to existing style — if a matching paint style is found, click Apply Fix to connect all layers to that style.
   • Bind to variable — if you use color variables, bind the layers to the appropriate variable instead.
   • Smart Replace — LintKit suggests the closest match from your library using Delta E 2000 perceptual color distance. A Delta E below 1.0 is an exact match; below 3.0 is virtually indistinguishable.
   • Create new style — if no match exists, create a new paint style from the detected color.
3. Verify the result

   After applying, re-scan to confirm the finding is resolved. If the color was slightly off from the matched style, verify visually that the replacement looks correct.

Configuration

Key	Default	Description
colorTolerance	5	Maximum Delta E 2000 distance for suggesting a matching style. Increase to see more suggestions; decrease for stricter matching.

Edge cases

When findings are suppressed or skipped

• Variable-bound fills are skipped. If a fill is already bound to a color variable, it is connected to your system and will not be flagged.
• Layers inside component instances are skipped. Instance internals are controlled by the main component — fix the main component instead.
• Tokens Studio strict mode suppresses findings when a fill color matches a token. In strict mode, LintKit treats token matches as compliant even without a Figma style connection. In advisory mode, the finding still appears but includes token metadata.

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Orphaned Text

Default: On | Severity: warn

Detects text nodes that do not use a text style. LintKit matches text by font family and font size to suggest the correct style.

What it detects

A text node using Inter at 16px without a linked text style would produce:

8 text layers use Inter / Regular / 16px without a linked text style. Matching style found: Body/Default

When to enable it

Enable this rule whenever your file has text styles defined. Disable it only during early typography exploration before styles are established.

How to fix findings

1. Review the matched style

   When LintKit finds a text style matching the same font family and size, it suggests linking to that style. Verify the match includes the correct weight and other properties.

2. Apply the style or create a new one

   • If a match is found, click Apply Fix to link all affected text layers to the style.
   • If no match exists (the finding says “no matching style”), you need to create the text style manually in Figma first, then re-scan.

Edge cases

When findings are suppressed or skipped

• Mixed-font text nodes (a single text layer with multiple font families or sizes applied to different characters) are skipped because there is no single style that can represent the mixed formatting.

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Orphaned Strokes

Default: On | Severity: warn

Detects strokes that are not linked to a paint style or color variable. Uses the same color grouping and Delta E 2000 matching as Orphaned Fills.

What it detects

Any solid stroke color that is not connected to a style or variable. For example:

5 layers use stroke color #E5E7EB (opacity 100%) without a linked style. Closest match: Border/Default (Delta E: 1.2)

When to enable it

Enable whenever you use paint styles or variables for border colors. This is on by default because orphaned strokes cause the same handoff and maintenance problems as orphaned fills.

How to fix findings

The fix workflow is identical to Orphaned Fills: link to an existing paint style, bind to a color variable, use Smart Replace, or create a new style.

Configuration

Key	Default	Description
colorTolerance	5	Maximum Delta E distance for suggesting a matching style. Shared with Orphaned Fills.

Edge cases

When findings are suppressed or skipped

• Variable-bound strokes are skipped.
• Layers inside component instances are skipped.
• Tokens Studio strict mode suppresses matching colors, identical to Orphaned Fills behavior.

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Orphaned Effects

Default: On | Severity: warn

Detects effects (drop shadows, inner shadows, layer blurs, background blurs) that are not connected to an effect style.

What it detects

Any visible effect that is not linked to an effect style. LintKit creates a signature from the first visible effect (type, color, offset, radius, spread for shadows; type + radius for blurs) and looks for a matching local style. For example:

3 layers use a drop shadow (0, 4, 8, #00000040) without an effect style. Matching style found: Shadow/Medium

When to enable it

Enable whenever your file uses effect styles for shadows and blurs. This is on by default.

How to fix findings

1. Check the suggested style

   If LintKit finds a matching effect style, review that the style properties (offset, blur, spread, color) match what you intend.

2. Apply or create

   • Click Apply Fix to link to the matching effect style.
   • If no match is found, create an effect style manually in Figma and re-scan.

Edge cases

When findings are suppressed or skipped

• Only the first visible effect is used for signature matching. If a node has multiple stacked effects (for example, a drop shadow and an inner shadow), only the first visible one is compared. This means a multi-effect node might not match a multi-effect style even if the effects are identical.
• Invisible effects (visibility toggled off) are ignored entirely.
• Effects bound to variables are skipped.

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Orphaned Grids

Default: On | Severity: info

Detects layout grids on frames, components, and component sets that are not linked to a grid style.

What it detects

Any visible layout grid that exists without a grid style connection. For example:

2 frames use a 12-column grid (margin: 24, gutter: 16) without a grid style. Matching style found: Grid/Desktop-12col

When to enable it

Enable if your team uses grid styles to standardize layout grids across files. This rule is info severity by default because layout grids are less commonly tokenized than colors or text.

How to fix findings

Click Apply Fix to link the frame’s grid to the matching grid style. If no match is found, create a grid style in Figma first.

Edge cases

When findings are suppressed or skipped

• Only the first visible grid is checked for matching. Frames with multiple grids may not match a multi-grid style.
• Invisible grids are ignored.
• Grids bound to variables are skipped.

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Duplicate Styles

Default: Off | Severity: warn

Detects near-identical local styles that could be consolidated. Instead of comparing hex codes directly, LintKit converts colors to the CIE Lab color space and uses the Delta E 2000 perceptual distance metric, which matches how humans perceive color differences.

What it detects

Styles that are visually indistinguishable or nearly so. For example:

Duplicate paint styles found: Brand/Primary (#2563EB) and Legacy/Blue (#2462EA) are perceptually identical (Delta E: 0.8). Recommendation: merge into Brand/Primary.

A Delta E of 2.0 means two colors are virtually indistinguishable to the human eye. The default threshold of 2 catches only near-duplicates that almost certainly should be merged.

When to enable it

Enable this rule when you suspect your file or library has accumulated redundant styles over time — for example, after a rebrand, a library migration, or when multiple designers have created styles independently. Keep it off during normal work to avoid noise.

How to fix findings

1. Review the cluster

   LintKit groups duplicate styles into clusters. Review each cluster to confirm the styles are truly redundant and not intentionally distinct (for example, text/primary and text/secondary that happen to be similar).

2. Choose the canonical style

   LintKit keeps the first style in the cluster and remaps all usages of the others to it. If you want a different style to be the canonical one, reorder in Figma first.

3. Merge

   Click Apply Fix to merge the cluster. All nodes using the removed styles are automatically remapped to the kept style.

Semantic category grouping

Paint styles are only compared within the same semantic category. The category is the first segment of the style name path (everything before the first /).

For example:

• text/primary and text/secondary share the text category and will be compared
• text/primary and icon/primary are in different categories and will not be compared, even if they use the exact same color

This prevents false positives where two styles intentionally use the same color for different semantic purposes. Styles without a category (no / in the name) only match other uncategorized styles.

Configuration

Key	Default	Description	Use case for adjusting
duplicateStyles.colorThreshold	2	Delta E threshold for paint style comparison	Increase to 4-5 to catch styles that are similar but not identical. Decrease to 1 if you only want exact matches.
duplicateStyles.checkPaintStyles	true	Compare paint styles	Disable if you only want to check text or effect styles
duplicateStyles.checkTextStyles	true	Compare text styles	Text styles use exact matching (family, size, weight, spacing, line height, case, decoration)
duplicateStyles.checkEffectStyles	true	Compare effect styles	Effect styles use exact matching on the full effect signature

The colorThreshold for duplicate styles (default: 2) is separate from colorTolerance (default: 5). The tolerance is used by orphaned fill/stroke rules to suggest the closest matching style. The threshold is used by this rule to detect near-identical styles that should be merged. Keep the threshold lower than the tolerance to avoid merging styles that are merely similar.

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Unused Styles

Default: On | Severity: info

This rule only produces findings in library files. Learn more about library-only rules.

Detects local paint, text, effect, and grid styles that have zero usage on the current page. This helps library maintainers identify styles that can be deprecated or removed.

What it detects

Any local style (paint, text, effect, or grid) that is not applied to a single node on the current page. For example:

Unused paint style: Legacy/OldBlue has zero usages on this page.

When to enable it

Enable when you are auditing a library file to clean up unused styles. This is on by default but only runs in library files.

How to fix findings

1. Verify the style is truly unused

   The scan checks the current page only to keep performance fast. A style that appears unused on the current page may be used on other pages or by consumers of your library in other files. Before deleting, check if the style is referenced elsewhere.

2. Delete or keep

   • Click Apply Fix to delete the unused style.
   • Click Ignore if the style is intentionally kept for future use or external consumers.

Edge cases

Limitations to be aware of

• Current page only. The scan does not load other pages (to avoid slow multi-page loading). A style may appear unused but be referenced on a different page.
• External consumers. This rule cannot check whether other files consume the style. If your library is used by other teams, verify externally before deleting.
• Library files only. This rule silently returns zero findings in non-library files, so you do not need to toggle it off.