Open Sourcing Thumbprint Native Design System
Article Summary
Mallika Potter and Kevin Beaulieu from Thumbtack reveal how they open-sourced their entire native design system—and the surprising technical challenges they had to solve first.
Thumbtack built Thumbprint, a cross-platform design system for iOS and Android, to standardize their product experience as they shifted focus to mobile. After years of internal use, they decided to open-source it to help the broader mobile community, which has far fewer design system resources than web.
Key Takeaways
- Solved licensing issues by creating helper functions for swappable icons and fonts
- Migrated from Jenkins to GitHub Actions for public CI and releases
- Duplicated testing code to eliminate dependencies on private internal codebases
- Built accessibility and easy customization into every component from day one
- Now manages small friction of three-step process: update, release, upgrade
Critical Insight
Thumbtack successfully open-sourced their iOS and Android design systems by untangling private dependencies, solving asset licensing constraints, and accepting manageable development overhead.
