Developer onboarding helps engineers understand how to work with the design system so they can implement it consistently and make informed decisions when building features. Clear onboarding reduces guesswork, review friction, and repeated questions.
Use this when new engineers join, teams adopt the system for the first time, or recurring implementation issues appear.
Steps
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Clarify onboarding intent
Agree on what developers need to understand to work effectively with the system, based on how your teams work and how much support is available.
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Identify priority areas
Focus on foundations, core components, and patterns where inconsistent implementation causes the most friction.
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Define expectations and boundaries
Clarify what each area is responsible for, how it is expected to behave, and where flexibility or constraints apply.
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Decide where guidance lives
Using Guidance Setup, decide where developers should find onboarding guidance and how it connects to usage documentation.
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Revise and improve
Use questions, pull request feedback, and common issues to identify gaps and improve onboarding over time.