Access bound Figma variable names in Template API

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
42/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
figma, typescript
Domain
developer-experience

Research direction

Start by reading the Template API entry points for getString(), getBoolean(), getEnum(), and getInstanceSwap(), then trace how visual properties such as fills and strokes are exposed from a Figma instance. Check existing Template API tests and identify how they verify property access. Done means templates can read a bound variable name for the requested property and the behavior is covered by tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

feature request

Problem

The Template API provides getString(), getBoolean(), getEnum(), getInstanceSwap() — but has no way to read bound Figma variables on visual properties (fills, strokes, text color).

When a component's fill color is set via a Figma variable (e.g. errorColor), the template cannot access that variable name to generate the correct code token.

Use Case

We have a Flutter Badge component where background color is controlled by bound Figma variables. The variable can be any color from our full design system palette — primaryColor, errorColor, successColor, warningColor, and many others. In code, these map directly to theme accessors:

PbBadge(
  value: 'Text',
  color: context.theme.primaryColor,
)

PbBadge(
  value: 'Error',
  color: context.theme.errorColor,
)

Currently the template cannot output color: at all — developers must manually look up the correct token.

Proposed API

instance.getBoundVariable('fills')    // → "primaryColor"
instance.getBoundVariable('strokes')  // → "borderColor"

Template usage (Flutter example):

const fillVar = instance.getBoundVariable('fills');
const colorPart = fillVar ? `\n  color: context.theme.${fillVar},` : "";

export default {
  example: figma.code`PbBadge(
  value: "${value}",${colorPart}
)`,
};

This would generate:

PbBadge(
  value: 'TextValue',
  color: context.theme.primaryColor,
)
Dominant language
TypeScript
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