It would be nice to have a hotline where you could report heinous design crimes. No one has to listen on the other end, I'd just like to vent.

I'll feel better when we get through this phase of every interface showing a popup to tell me how I can use a new AI feature I don't need to complete a task I'm not doing.

The hardest problem in design systems is whatever problem I was just working on.

Late night patisserie.

Still relevant words, unfortunately. open.spotify.com/track/7xVpkV...

Made some cinnamon rolls. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, friends. ❤️🎄

I have never needed a week off so badly. HTTP 503: Alan Unavailable ✌️

Italian espresso martini. Cheers, friends.

Don’t get caught up in the silly design system debate on whether design or code is the “real source of truth.” We all know the authoritative source of truth is actually a spreadsheet.

What happened to Spotlight Search across MacOS and iOS? It used to be excellent, and now it's almost unusable.

A fool-proof remedy for Sunday scaries at our house: Oatmeal raisin cookies 🍪 I keep the recipe here: github.com/alanbsmith/r...

100% this. We keep as much of Canvas out in the open as possible because we believe our open source model makes us better. We also would not be where we are today without the inspiration we’ve received from other OS design systems. Keep shouting for more open source systems. It’s worth the fight.

One day you wake up and you’re the last of the design system old guard. Weird feeling.

More of the USWNT is playing European football, and it shows. The caliber of the squad has grown so much from a couple years ago.

Late night pie prep. 🌙 🥧

Sheesh. We’ve been publishing workday/canvas-* packages to npm for years using tokens without a problem. But moving to OIDC we ran into some obscure errors. One of which was our repo is *technically* Workday/canvas-kit not workday/canvas-kit, and that capital W really matters.

I'm just a man, sitting in front of a static asset service, waiting for it to replicate.

I'm really glad we moved away from single component packages for our design system. It sounds nice, but it would have been such a pain to maintain.

Olivia Moultrie is unreal. #NWSL #PORvSD

I asked a group of managers how they handle shutting their brains off when they have long-running tasks that don’t resolve quickly. They told me to write things down when they come up and get more sleep. I’m here to report they were unfortunately correct. Jerks. 😂

Earlier in my career I would get frustrated by not having access to an important meeting or document. Now I’ve learned that access to walled information tends to have an expensive entrance fee. Access isn’t a privilege, it’s more responsibility.

End of the sprint + end of the month + end of the quarter is like a perfect storm. It’s been a week, y’all.

A Fall classic: the Flannel Shirt.

I don’t say enough about the importance of frontend platform engineers — they are a tremendous force. We can only do so much as design system engineers, but FE platform amplifies our impact across our ecosystem. It’s remarkable what they can do. I’m very thankful for solid platform partners. 💪

We wrapped up our soccer season today. I coach because I love it, but these gifts are nice too. 🥰

It’s wild to sit in a parent teacher meeting and hear eerily similar feedback to what you received when you were a kid. Like oh yeah, my brain works that way too. And I definitely struggled with the same issues in school.

#NWSL teams are always a little subversive, and it’s awesome. 💊😂

These npm supply chain attacks have brought dependency bumps to and absolute standstill. As someone working on a design system who desperately wants people to upgrade to the latest versions of our packages, this is a very frustrating setback. 😡

I read “Where the Axe is Buried” by Ray Nayler this year (which was great!), and then this happens — too real. #booksky It’s a warning, not a manual, etc etc. futurism.com/albania-diel...

I wish I could clear my brain’s cache. I bet that’d feel so nice. tingly, probably.

You ever have one of those days where you’re not sure if you need more espresso or less espresso? That’s where I’m at.

The genius of classic cocktails are the simple components which are thoughtfully composed.

If folks could stop with the supply chain attacks to npm deps, that would be great.

When I started working on Canvas Design System almost six years ago, we were only on v4, about to release v5. Today we shipped v14. Lots of unglamorous work in that time, but we’ve slowly made progress toward a system that works better for designers and engineers. Very proud of our team.

Made some pies. 🍕

A nice personal milestone for learning Italian. ~50 hours / 130 lessons for 100 days. I’m also supplementing with audiobooks and podcasts which are helpful. 🇮🇹

Malicious versions of the nx package + some packages under the @nx/* scope were published to npm. The compromised versions scan the file system, search for credentials, and post them publicly to GitHub. www.aikido.dev/blog/popular...

All these engineering management books exist, and there’s not nearly enough discourse on proper desk snacks.

40,000 people at a converted baseball field. The interest is there. Bay FC deserves a proper stadium.

Carved a batch of ice cubes this week. Pretty happy with the result. Love how the cube disappears.

A lesson from my years in tech: Always be very kind to your DevOps engineers and pay them whatever they want. They’re worth it.

What am I most excited about this weekend? - Making pizza - Teaching six-year-olds to love soccer LFG

My brain is currently stuck on the idea of “work mythologies” — internal stories that get passed along to explain odd product decisions, counterintuitive business logic, heroic last-ditch efforts, etc. Businesses are complex entities we can’t fully comprehend, so we create stories to explain them.

You use AI to write up a three-page doc that could have been one page. I use an AI summary to turn those three pages into a paragraph. Is this the productivity we were promised?

Great read on this tension. Organizational support for designers to raise important questions and dissenting opinions is critical for their well being and is essential to ship quality products.

Made a Boulevardier. This one goes out to the CPB and viewers like you. ❤️

Another excellent Women’s Euros Tournament! Women’s football has been booming since the last Euros in 2022. There’s been a dramatic shift in the level of interest and quality of competition. That continues to drive investment and opportunity in the sport. I’m excited to see where we’ll be in 2029.

Chloe Kelly returns to Arsenal and starts winning everything. Love seeing good people put in the right place and watching them thrive. 🌻🌷🌹 #ENGESP

Spain are so dominant. England need some Chloe Kelly magic. ✨ #WEuro2025 #ENGESP

Small iOS feature request: Someone asks me to do something in a text message, and the app automatically makes a suggestion to turn that into a reminder. E.g. “Could you check the lasagna in 15 minutes, please?” That would save me from making countless avoidable errors.