Quantum Tokens Are Now Open Source

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6 min

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Julien Déramond

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Quantum Tokens Are Now Open Source

Quantum’s design tokens are now open source. They live in the ThalesGroup/quantum repository on GitHub under the MIT license, and you can install them from npm as @quantum-ds/tokens.

It’s the first public package of Quantum, the Thales Digital Design System, and it won’t be the last. We’ve also published a public version of our documentation at quantum.thalesdigital.io, the site you’re reading now.

Both show the current version of Quantum, which is now a few years old. We’re building its next generation, far more modern in its design system practices and in how it works with AI. Here’s why we opened the current one and what you’ll find inside.

We believe in open source

Quantum is built on open source. Style Dictionary and Terrazzo build our tokens, Penpot is one of the design tools we export to, and the token format itself comes from the Design Tokens Community Group, a W3C community group. Publishing our own work is a way to give some of that back.

Working in public also makes these practices visible. A public repository needs a clear README, a changelog, a license, and a release process anyone can check. We already enforce these good practices through InnerSource, and publishing Quantum lets anyone see them in action.

Reachable from anywhere

Large organizations rarely have one place to put code. They often run several source control platforms and package registries side by side. Making a package available across them requires ongoing maintenance. People outside the organization can’t reach any of them.

A public package skips all of that. Most company registries already mirror npm, so @quantum-ds/tokens shows up in them without any extra step. A team inside Thales and a partner outside it install the same package with the same command, and get the same version.

Open to agents

More and more of us build with agents and LLMs: coding assistants in the editor, agents running in the cloud, prototypes vibe-coded from a prompt. These tools work with what they can reach. An internal registry behind a company login is out of their reach. A public npm package and a public GitHub repository aren’t.

With the tokens in the open, a prompt can say “use @quantum-ds/tokens”. The agent installs the package, reads the DTCG files and the README, and picks --button-filled-danger-background-color instead of guessing a red. Design system folks outside Thales get the same thing: a real token set to feed to their own tools, study, or compare with theirs.

What’s in the package

Version 1.10.0 is the first public one. Earlier versions were only released inside Thales.

The code is under the MIT license and the documentation under CC BY 4.0. You can use, change, and share both, in commercial products too, as long as you keep the copyright notice and credit Quantum. The Quantum logo and brand images aren’t covered by either license.

These are the tokens of the current Quantum, created a few years back. They have two layers. Raw tokens hold the values: colors, spacing, typography, borders, shadows, icons, breakpoints, and grids. Component tokens cover 25 components, from alerts to tooltips, plus data visualization, each in a light and a dark theme.

Component tokens point straight at raw values. button.filled.danger.background.color is {color.red.500}, with no semantic layer in between, no “danger background” token that every component would share. The next generation of Quantum adds that layer, and its tokens are among the next things we plan to open.

From the DTCG source, the package ships:

  • DTCG JSON files, the source of truth, in dist/dtcg/.
  • CSS custom properties, with the dark theme under a .dark class.
  • Sass variables.
  • JavaScript and TypeScript modules, with one named export per token.
  • Android XML resources.
  • A Penpot token file.

The build also writes files for Figma and Tokens Studio, but they aren’t in the npm package yet.

npm install @quantum-ds/tokens
@import '@quantum-ds/tokens/dist/tokens.css';
@import '@quantum-ds/tokens/dist/tokens-dark.css';

.danger-button {
  background-color: var(--button-filled-danger-background-color);
}

A new source of truth

Until recently, the tokens lived in Figma. Designers defined them on artboards, we exported them to JSON, and Style Dictionary turned that JSON into CSS and JavaScript. Every change started in one design tool, and every other tool came second.

We recently moved the source of truth to a set of JSON files in the repository, written in the Design Tokens Format (DTCG). A resolver file, quantum.resolver.json, tells tools how the raw, component, and theme sets fit together. Style Dictionary builds the CSS, Sass, JavaScript, and Android files. Terrazzo reads the same files and checks them against the specification. Our own scripts write the Figma, Penpot, and Tokens Studio files. Figma is now one consumer among others.

You can do the same with formats we don’t ship. Point Style Dictionary or Terrazzo at dist/dtcg/ and generate what your platform needs.

The old Figma export is still in the package so nothing breaks for current users: dist/json/, and dist/tokens.js built from it, which is also the package’s main entry. Both have been deprecated since 1.8.0 and will go away in a future major version. For new work, use dist/dtcg/ or the formats built from it.

Thanks to the OSPO

Publishing under the Thales name takes more than a git push. The Thales Open Source Program Office (OSPO) helped us through it, and the repository now sits in the ThalesGroup organization on GitHub next to more than 300 other Thales projects. Thank you!

The OSPO sums up its approach as “Use, Contribute, Publish.” Quantum has used open source from the start, and this is our first step on the publishing side. That work across the group earned Thales the Best Open Source Strategy award from the CNLL, the French open source industry council, in December 2025.

If you work at Thales and want to open a project too, the OSPO is the place to start.

What comes next

Tokens are the start. We plan to open more of Quantum in the same repository:

  • The next-generation tokens, with their semantic layer.
  • Component specs.
  • Possibly simple themes for open source component libraries, built from Quantum tokens.

If you use the tokens, inside or outside Thales, we’d like to hear how. Open an issue on GitHub, or read the contributing guide to send a change.

And if you want to follow what we open next, give the repository a star on GitHub. It helps other teams find Quantum, and it shows us there’s interest in more.