Jessie A Ellis
Jan 16, 2026 14:33
Harvey AI rebuilt its design infrastructure from scratch to help speedy product growth throughout net, cellular, and Microsoft Workplace platforms.
Harvey AI, the legal-focused AI firm valued at $1.5 billion following its June 2024 funding spherical, has accomplished a ground-up rebuild of its design system to handle what the corporate referred to as “chaotic” infrastructure that could not maintain tempo with product growth.
The overhaul tackles a standard scaling downside in fast-growing startups: design and engineering groups talking totally different languages. Harvey’s earlier setup combined legacy parts, Shadcn parts, and customized one-off implementations throughout its Figma designs and React codebase, creating translation errors that slowed improvement.
What Truly Modified
The corporate moved from appearance-based naming (“neutral-400”) to intent-based semantic tokens (“foreground-base”). This feels like inside baseball, however it issues for anybody watching Harvey’s growth trajectory. Semantic tokens imply the corporate can now ship new themes, accessibility modes, or product manufacturers with out rebuilding all the things from scratch.
Harvey constructed a GitHub Motion that syncs Figma variables on to code. Designers replace tokens in Figma, set off a workflow, and a pull request opens routinely. No extra handbook handoffs or interpretation errors between design and engineering.
The migration technique reveals how significantly Harvey is treating operational effectivity. Quite than a tough cutoff, the corporate applied graduated enforcement: linter warnings for primitive token utilization now, warnings for legacy tokens at 80% adoption, and pre-commit errors at 95%.
Why This Issues for Harvey’s Roadmap
The timing aligns with Harvey’s push into new platforms. The corporate explicitly mentions cellular and Microsoft Workplace add-ins as speedy priorities, requiring parts that “really feel native to every platform, whereas nonetheless unmistakably Harvey.”
For a corporation serving elite regulation corporations—the place belief and precision are non-negotiable—this infrastructure work is foundational. Harvey’s design philosophy emphasizes transparency and area consciousness, rules that require constant execution throughout each floor.
The $100 million raised in June 2024 seems to be funding precisely this sort of operational maturity. Harvey is hiring for design system roles throughout each Design and Engineering groups, signaling continued funding within the basis quite than simply characteristic velocity.
Whether or not this positions Harvey to widen its lead in authorized AI will depend on execution. However the firm now has infrastructure that may flex with out requiring one other main overhaul—a prerequisite for the multi-platform growth they’re telegraphing.
Picture supply: Shutterstock
