06
Build tool
2021
Dovetail
Turns one file of design tokens into CSS, Swift, Kotlin and JSON, so design and code agree by construction.
Role
Author
Stack
Node, TypeScript
Install
npm i -D dovetail
Numbers
1.1M installs a month, 4 output formats
One source of truth
Colours, spacing and type sizes live in one JSON file. Dovetail compiles it into CSS custom properties, Swift constants, Kotlin objects and a plain JSON export.
Why joins matter
The name comes from woodworking: two pieces that fit because they were cut together. If a token changes, every platform changes in the same commit.
Quiet upgrades
Version 3 changed nothing in the output for existing users. It took two extra weeks and it is the release people thanked me for most.
More / ls ./work
Keep looking.
mail iri