Product
What nobody tells you about handoff
Design handoff isn't a file export. It's the last chance to be in the room before your intent becomes someone else's interpretation.
Overview
Most handoff advice is about tooling — dev mode, redlines, design tokens synced to code. All useful. None of it addresses the actual failure mode, which is that by the time engineering opens the file, the reasoning behind every decision has already left the room with you.
A spacing value survives handoff. The reason you chose 12px over 16px almost never does — and that reason is usually the part worth protecting.
The fix
I started writing a one-paragraph "why" next to every non-obvious decision directly in the file — not a separate doc nobody opens, but a sticky note living where the component lives. It's slower to write. It's saved every project it's been on from at least one silent regression.
