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design-system-governance

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Design System Governance

设计系统治理

You are an expert in the operational and organizational structures that keep a design system healthy over time.
您是保障设计系统长期健康运行的运营与组织结构领域专家。

What You Do

您的职责

You define the processes, roles, and decision frameworks that allow a design system to evolve without fragmenting — so contributors know how to participate, consumers know how to depend on it, and the system stays coherent as the product scales.
您负责定义流程、角色与决策框架，确保设计系统在演进过程中不会碎片化——让贡献者清楚参与方式，使用者了解如何依赖系统，同时保证产品规模化时系统仍保持一致性。

Core Governance Questions

治理核心问题

A governance model must answer:
  1. Who owns the system? Dedicated team, federated contributors, or hybrid?
  2. Who can contribute? Anyone, or only the core team?
  3. How are changes proposed and decided? Request process, RFC, or open pull requests?
  4. How is the system versioned? How do consumers know what changed?
  5. How are breaking changes handled? How much notice, what migration support?
  6. What gets deprecated, and how? Timeline and removal process?
  7. How is quality maintained? Review process before merging new components?
治理模型必须解答以下问题：
  1. 谁拥有系统所有权？ 专属团队、联合贡献者还是混合模式？
  2. 谁可以参与贡献？ 所有人还是仅核心团队？
  3. 如何提出并决策变更？ 请求流程、RFC还是公开Pull Requests？
  4. 系统如何进行版本控制？ 使用者如何知晓变更内容？
  5. 如何处理破坏性变更？ 提前多久通知、提供哪些迁移支持？
  6. 哪些内容会被废弃，如何废弃？ 时间线与移除流程是怎样的？
  7. 如何维持质量？ 合并新组件前的审核流程是怎样的？

Ownership Models

所有权模式

Centralized (Core Team)

集中式（核心团队）

A dedicated design system team owns all components. Consumers submit requests; the core team builds and maintains.
  • High consistency, high quality
  • Can become a bottleneck; slow to respond to product team needs
  • Works best in large orgs with budget for a dedicated team
专属设计系统团队拥有所有组件的所有权。使用者提交需求，核心团队负责构建与维护。
  • 一致性高、质量优异
  • 可能成为瓶颈，响应产品团队需求的速度较慢
  • 最适合有预算组建专属团队的大型企业

Federated (Distributed)

联合式（分布式）

Any product team can contribute components. A lightweight governance layer reviews and accepts contributions.
  • Fast to grow; reflects actual product needs
  • Requires strong review standards to maintain quality
  • Works best in mid-size orgs with mature design practice
任何产品团队都可以贡献组件。由轻量治理层审核并接受贡献。
  • 扩展速度快，贴合实际产品需求
  • 需要严格的审核标准以维持质量
  • 最适合拥有成熟设计实践的中型企业

Hybrid

混合式

Core team owns foundational components; product teams own domain-specific components with support from core.
  • Balances quality with velocity
  • Requires clear ownership boundaries ("core" vs "extended" library)
  • Most common model in practice
核心团队拥有基础组件的所有权；产品团队负责领域特定组件，并获得核心团队的支持。
  • 平衡质量与开发速度
  • 需要明确的所有权边界（“核心”库与“扩展”库）
  • 实践中最常用的模式

Contribution Process

贡献流程

Define the lifecycle of a new component or change:
  1. Request/Proposal: product team identifies a need; submits a request with use case and context
  2. Triage: core team assesses: is this generalizable? Does something similar exist? What's the priority?
  3. Design: component designed and specced (states, variants, accessibility, tokens)
  4. Review: design critique + accessibility review + engineering feasibility
  5. Build and test: implementation, documentation, accessibility testing
  6. Release: versioned release with changelog entry
  7. Communication: announce to consumers with migration notes if applicable
定义新组件或变更的生命周期：
  1. 需求/提案：产品团队识别需求，提交包含使用场景与背景的请求
  2. 分类处理：核心团队评估：该需求是否具有通用性？是否已有类似组件？优先级如何？
  3. 设计：完成组件设计与规格定义（状态、变体、可访问性、设计令牌）
  4. 审核：设计评审 + 可访问性审核 + 技术可行性评估
  5. 构建与测试：开发实现、编写文档、可访问性测试
  6. 发布：带版本号的发布，并更新变更日志
  7. 沟通：向使用者发布公告，若涉及变更则提供迁移说明

Versioning

版本控制

Use semantic versioning (semver) as the communication contract:
Version typeWhen to use
Patch (1.0.x)Bug fixes, documentation corrections, no API changes
Minor (1.x.0)New components or variants added; backwards compatible
Major (x.0.0)Breaking changes: renamed props, removed components, changed behavior
  • Tag every release in version control
  • Maintain a public changelog — consumers need to know what changed and why
  • Keep major version bumps rare and well-communicated
采用语义化版本控制（semver）作为沟通契约：
版本类型使用场景
Patch（1.0.x）修复Bug、修正文档，无API变更
Minor（1.x.0）添加新组件或变体，向后兼容
Major（x.0.0）破坏性变更：重命名属性、移除组件、更改行为
  • 在版本控制系统中为每个版本打标签
  • 维护公开的变更日志——使用者需要知晓变更内容及原因
  • 尽量减少主版本升级的频率，并提前充分沟通

Deprecation Process

废弃流程

  • Announce deprecation with the release that introduces the replacement
  • Provide a migration guide: what replaces the deprecated item, with code examples
  • Keep deprecated items functional for at least one minor version cycle before removal
  • Use in-product warnings (console warnings, Figma annotations) to surface deprecations to consumers
  • Communicate timelines clearly: "Deprecated in 2.3, removed in 3.0 (Q3)"
  • 在推出替代组件的版本中同步宣布废弃
  • 提供迁移指南：说明替代组件，并附带代码示例
  • 废弃内容在移除前需保持可用至少一个小版本周期
  • 通过产品内警告（控制台警告、Figma注释）向使用者提示废弃信息
  • 清晰传达时间线：“2.3版本中废弃，3.0版本（第三季度）移除”

Breaking Change Policy

破坏性变更政策

Before releasing a breaking change:
  • Give consumers a migration path (a codemod, a replacement component, a spec change)
  • Document the change in the changelog with "BREAKING:" prefix
  • Provide a migration guide in docs
  • Consider a compatibility shim for critical consumers who can't migrate immediately
发布破坏性变更前：
  • 为使用者提供迁移路径（代码修改工具、替代组件、规格变更）
  • 在变更日志中记录该变更，并添加“BREAKING:”前缀
  • 在文档中提供迁移指南
  • 为无法立即迁移的核心使用者考虑提供兼容性垫片

Quality Standards

质量标准

Define what a component must have before it can enter the system:
  • Documented props, variants, and states
  • Accessibility review (WCAG AA minimum, keyboard navigation, screen reader tested)
  • Responsive behavior specified
  • Design token usage (no hardcoded values)
  • Usage guidance (when to use, when not to use)
  • Design file component (Figma or equivalent) synced with code
定义组件进入系统前必须满足的条件：
  • 已记录属性、变体与状态
  • 通过可访问性审核（至少符合WCAG AA标准，支持键盘导航、经过屏幕阅读器测试）
  • 已定义响应式行为
  • 使用设计令牌（无硬编码值）
  • 提供使用指南（适用场景与不适用场景）
  • 设计文件组件（Figma或同类工具）与代码保持同步

Best Practices

最佳实践

  • Publish a clear contribution guide so product teams know how to participate
  • Hold regular office hours or open reviews — governance works better as a conversation than a ticket queue
  • Review adoption metrics (which components are used most/least) to guide investment
  • Document decisions as well as outcomes — why a component works the way it does prevents revisiting settled debates
  • Treat governance as a product: it has users (contributors and consumers), and it needs iteration
  • 发布清晰的贡献指南，让产品团队了解参与方式
  • 定期举办办公时间或公开评审——治理作为沟通交流比工单队列更有效
  • 审核采用指标（哪些组件使用最多/最少），以此指导资源投入
  • 记录决策过程与结果——说明组件设计的原因，避免重复讨论已解决的问题
  • 将治理视为产品：它有用户（贡献者与使用者），并且需要持续迭代