Config 2026: New materials, new tools and a more expressive canvas

Config 2026: The canvas grows new materials

Config 2026 opened with a straightforward claim: no tool should limit where an idea can go. In practice, that means Figma is treating the canvas less as a static surface for finished mockups and more as a live environment where different kinds of creative material can be mixed, pushed and shaped. The announcements center on expanding what those materials are and how they can be manipulated.

For years the industry has framed design and code as opposing disciplines, but Figma wants to retire that binary. The company’s position is that code is simply another material, equivalent to images, vectors or design layers — and that it deserves to live in the same collaborative space as everything else.

Code layers move onto the canvas

The centerpiece of this vision is code layers. Any existing design layer can be converted into an interactive code layer with a single click or a prompt. Once on the canvas, code behaves like any other object: you can duplicate it to explore multiple directions side by side, leave comments, keep iterating and work with teammates in the same file.

The relationship with design layers is bidirectional. When you need to step back into familiar territory, you can extract a design frame back into editable design layers. Coming back the other way is just as easy — one click syncs the code layer with whatever changed in the design.

Early access for code layers opens in July via the waitlist at figma.com/config-betas.

Three new materials for richer expression

Code isn’t the only addition. Config 2026 also introduced new materials aimed at giving designers more visual and temporal range.

Figma Motion brings interaction and animation capabilities directly onto the canvas, so that movement becomes part of the design material set rather than something you hand off to a developer later.

Shader fills and effects push the same idea in a different direction. Instead of relying on baked-in visual effects, designers can use shaders to drive the look and behavior of elements on the canvas itself, opening up a wider spectrum of visual outcomes than static styling alone can provide.

Generative plugins are the third piece, folding AI-assisted generation into the plugin ecosystem. Combined with the new materials, they are positioned as ways to generate and explore variations while keeping everything inside the same collaborative file.

Weave tools and the Figma agent

Figma also highlighted the latest additions to its Weave toolkit, which it presented as part of the same push toward expressive composition. Alongside that, the company offered an update on the Figma agent, its AI assistant.

The overarching theme is composition. The materials — code, motion, shaders, generative plugins and Weave tools — are meant to work together, letting designers switch between them fluidly as an idea develops. In Figma’s telling, the canvas is becoming not just a place where work lives, but a place where everything connects.