I only found out about Figma's limitation when I was trying to add the remote MCP server to GitHub Copilot Desktop and kept running into errors. Turns out they whitelisted GitHub Copilot CLI but not the Desktop app and had put a pause on enabling any more vendors. Eventually someone (not sure which side) got it working.

Kind of strange to limit edit access only to the Remote MCP when their competitors like Pen[1] and Paper[2] allow any local agent to edit.

[1] https://www.pen.dev/

[2] https://paper.design/

> on the figma mcp, we've had an email thread going on for 8 months trying to get it setup in opencode

> they seem very concerned with the labs competing with them

> finally got unblocked after i sent this email and it'll be rolled out in a week or so

The email:

> looking through the legal stuff the amount of things in there seems pretty crazy

> this is just an mcp server, there are thousands of them. we're not going to treat figma like its special

> we've been talking about this for this entire year, i don't think this makes much sense and i don't want my team burning more time on this

> once again, for a simple mcp server

— https://www.threads.com/@thdxr/post/Dd7LN-ylLQW

I created an opensource unofficial mcp/skill/cli here git@github.com:allan-simon/figma-kiwi-protocol.git

Its based on a reverse engineering of the kiwi protocol and it works for read/write , comments etc. and it does not require anything except a cookie session ( I usually automate this part by having a isolated chrome with CDP activated)

I created sometimes ago because I had to work with some customers who didnt want to pay for a full seat for my account so the official mcp was not possible at all.

> Get started using the Slack MCP server by setting up a connection with an available partner

https://slack.com/help/articles/48855576908307-Guide-to-Mode...

For my Figma needs, having Codex do computer use seems just as good as their mcp. I can tell it, “go download the assets for what I need and take a few screenshots for reference”.

The security problem is two fold: (1) companies want control over where their data goes. Figma allowing any MCP creates problems (2) open redirects can create phishing issues. If your using Pi, you’re probably thinking of this. Most users aren’t.

For us, we decided to do an allowlist pattern because it was a reasonable tradeoff. The solution is allowing per-tenant client configuration, but that comes with its own set of issues (dev time, support, maintenance, etc). When nearly all of the money is flowing through a handful of well-known MCPs there’s little reason to out effort into supporting every MCP.

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/mcp-in-practice/

MCP is only as useful as the servers people use are open.

Better consumer choice, less companies stifling competition.

Tell your Congressperson! An easy way to frame it: why should I have to cross check Amazon or eBay or Walmart or w/e stupid janky frontend myself and find the best price/product? Why isn't it good for the economy if any agent harness can interface with such data as a consumer right?

The question is no different here. But most people don't know what figma is (it will probably not exist in 10 years anyway). However if we focus on the big abusers of platform economics, then the benefits we accrue from highlighting the tensions with consumers at those entities will simply flow downstream into the wider economy.

An economy that is more transparent is also a necessary precursor to robust UBI. When a company like Figma makes this move, the correct read should be they are buying into a playbook bent on depriving all of us of a more equitable future - one of the few optimistic possibilities for the highly contested future we are rapidly approaching.

The obvious play to "extract value" from that is to restrict access to bots and offer LLM integration themselves, for a fee.