Scripting

open-pencil eval gives you the full Figma Plugin API in the terminal. Read nodes, modify properties, create shapes — then write changes back to the file.

Basic Usage

open-pencil eval design.fig -c "figma.currentPage.children.length"

The -c flag takes JavaScript. The figma global works like the Figma Plugin API.

Query Nodes

open-pencil eval design.fig -c "
  figma.currentPage.findAll(n => n.type === 'FRAME' && n.name.includes('Button'))
    .map(b => ({ id: b.id, name: b.name, w: b.width, h: b.height }))
"

Modify and Save

open-pencil eval design.fig -c "
  figma.currentPage.children.forEach(n => n.opacity = 0.5)
" -w

-w writes changes back to the input file. Use -o output.fig to write to a different file instead.

Read from Stdin

For longer scripts:

cat transform.js | open-pencil eval design.fig --stdin -w

Live App Mode

Omit the file to run against the running desktop app:

open-pencil eval -c "figma.currentPage.name"

Available API

The figma object supports:

• figma.currentPage — the active page
• figma.root — the document root
• figma.createFrame(), figma.createRectangle(), figma.createEllipse(), figma.createText(), etc.
• .findAll(), .findOne() — search descendants
• .appendChild(), .insertChild() — tree manipulation
• All property setters: .fills, .strokes, .effects, .opacity, .cornerRadius, .layoutMode, .itemSpacing, etc.

This is the same API Figma plugins use, so existing knowledge and code snippets transfer directly.

JSON Output

open-pencil eval design.fig -c "..." --json