1. Start with Layer 1, not a component picker.
Answer Q1–Q6 and platform strategy for the product. The B&Co Standard treats this as a hard stop: product principles and platform requirements shape the system before tokens or components are standardized.
2. Declare the system’s homes.
Name where canonical token values live, how they move between design and code, where component documentation lives, and where product decisions are recorded. The medium can vary; the source-of-record declaration cannot stay implicit.
3. Establish the three token tiers.
4. Fill the 68-job checklist in the product spec.
Specify what the product needs; use defer-with-reason where the checklist allows it. The checklist is not a demand that every product display every control. It is a demand that the product’s system has an honest opinion.
Open the System Checklist →5. Adopt the baseline, then adapt expression.
Use ready Building Blocks component jobs where they fit. Map the product’s own color, typography, density, radius, motion, icon, and surface decisions through semantic roles instead of component-by-component overrides.
6. Make the product-local Catalog part of the build.
Mount the product’s real system, including honest Not yet sections, so documentation stays connected to product decisions and git from the beginning.
Read the Catalog contract →7. Use the Gap Protocol when reality exceeds the baseline.
Search first. Extend an existing component when it can cover the job. If the system truly lacks the need, build locally with semantic tokens, mark the gap, and decide whether it is a contribution candidate.
Use the extension guide →