# I don't hand off designs anymore. I ship PRs

_A year ago I couldn't open a terminal. Today I design inside production codebases, and the fence I thought stood between design and code turned out to be about tools, not about careers._

By Arely Rivera · 15 Sep 2026 · https://arelyrivera.com/writing/i-dont-hand-off-designs-anymore

A year ago, I didn't even know how to open a terminal properly.

I knew GitHub existed and I technically had an account, but words like *branches*, *worktrees*, or *pull requests* felt like a completely different career reserved strictly for engineers.

Today, I design directly inside production codebases. I open PRs, inspect CI pipelines, and build interfaces in code. And soon, I'll be speaking at Rails World about how we built a framework for AI to generate UI directly from design systems inside a repository.

All of this changed in under 12 months.

I didn't switch professions. I'm still a Product Designer.

**What changed is that I stopped believing design ends where the code begins.**

## The handoff trap

For years, my workflow followed an unquestioned routine: research, wireframe, design components in Figma, document edge cases, and hand it off.

Once the link was sent, my job was technically "done". But in reality, I was fully dependent on someone else to translate static mockups into what users would actually experience.

If something lived outside Figma, I assumed it wasn't my territory:

- GitHub? *Developer stuff.*
- The terminal? *Absolutely not.*
- The codebase? *Why would I even open it?*

I thought learning code meant pausing my design career to become a full-stack engineer. I didn't want to be mediocre at two professions, so I stayed safely on my side of the fence.

Then AI erased the fence entirely.

## From fear to a 7,000-line pull request

My first steps weren't sophisticated. I wasn't orchestrating complex agents; I was pasting ChatGPT output into Claude Code, breaking local setups, and asking senior engineers endless basic questions.

Then came my first real PR: **over 7,000 lines of code changes.**

I was terrified of breaking production. But pushing that PR unlocked something fundamental: it led directly to creating the **Onion Design Framework**—a methodology we designed to give LLMs structured context to build UI directly inside a codebase.

AI didn't turn me into a backend engineer. **It gave me the leverage to design in the real medium.**

## Static pixels lie. The browser tells the truth

Designing directly in code ruined traditional mockups for me. Here's why:

1. **Designing a system vs. pictures of a system:** Updating dozens of Figma frames after a layout change is painful manual labor. In code, a systemic rule updates the whole product instantly.
2. **The browser exposes reality:** Prototypes simulate experiences, but the browser *is* the experience. Real responsiveness, layout shifts, edge cases, and awkward transitions only surface when you touch the actual medium.

Handoff is no longer a game of visual telephone—it's co-creation on the exact same artifact.

*(And for stakeholders who don't read PRs? We use AI to automatically generate lightweight HTML handoff previews with visual diffs and documentation, keeping communication seamless without duplicating design work.)*

## AI didn't take my job. It moved the bottleneck

Stepping into the codebase didn't make me fear AI replacing designers. It did the opposite: it highlighted where human judgment actually lives.

An AI agent can dump thousands of lines of UI code in seconds. But it lacks:

- **Taste**
- **Context**
- **Business constraints**
- **User empathy**

When software production becomes trivial, the bottleneck shifts from *producing pixels* to **strategic judgment**—deciding what actually deserves to be built.

I still use Figma and FigJam every day for quick exploration and visual brainstorming. But I no longer treat it as the final destination of my design work.

If I could speak to my past self, I wouldn't tell her to become a developer. I would tell her to stop letting unfamiliar tools define the boundaries of her craft.

**I didn't become a developer.**

**I expanded where I can design.**