Figma Weave API Token Expired: Quick Fix Guide

When your Figma Weave automation or SDK integration suddenly halts with authentication errors, an expired API token is the most common culprit. Figma Weave relies on either Personal Access Tokens (PATs) or OAuth 2.0 access tokens to interact with Figma's REST API. When these tokens surpass their lifetime or are revoked, API calls return standard HTTP 401 Unauthorized or HTTP 403 Forbidden errors.

This guide walks you through identifying an expired token, generating a secure replacement, and configuring programmatic refreshes to prevent future pipeline disruptions.

Step 1: Verify the Error Code in Your Logs

Before changing configurations, confirm that the failure is due to an expired token rather than network blocks or bad scopes. Check your integration's console logs or error monitoring tool for the following payloads:

• HTTP Status 401 Unauthorized: This indicates that the token presented is invalid, expired, or has been revoked.
• Response Body: Look for messages like "err": "Invalid token" or "message": "Token expired".
• Header Inspection: Check the WWW-Authenticate header in the API response. If it contains error="invalid_token", the token is officially dead.

If you see a 403 Forbidden error instead, your token may still be active but lacks the necessary scopes (such as file_variables:read or files:read) required by the specific Figma Weave endpoint you are querying.

Step 2: Generate a New Figma Personal Access Token

If your application uses a Personal Access Token (PAT) for developer access, you must generate a fresh token from your Figma account settings.

1. Log in to your Figma account via the web browser.
2. Click on your profile icon in the top-left corner and select Settings.
3. Scroll down to the Personal access tokens section.
4. Click Create a new personal access token.
5. Provide a clear description (e.g., Figma Weave Production App).
6. Select the exact scopes your integration requires. Minimal configurations usually require File content (Read-only) or Write permissions depending on your Weave setup.
7. Select an expiration timeframe. For production environments, choose the longest secure period allowed by your organization's security policy.
8. Click Generate token and copy the string immediately. *Figma will not display this token again.*

Step 3: Update Environment Variables and Redeploy

Do not hardcode your new API token directly into your codebase. Update your environment configuration file (.env) or your hosting platform's secrets manager.

For a standard Node.js or Python application, update your environment variable file:

`env # Old expired token removed FIGMA_WEAVE_API_KEY="fig_your_new_token_string_here" `

After saving the file, restart your local development server or trigger a redeploy of your production container to load the new environment variables into memory.

Step 4: Configure OAuth 2.0 Refresh Token Flow

If your Figma Weave app connects via OAuth 2.0 rather than a PAT, access tokens automatically expire after 2 hours. You must implement a refresh token flow to obtain a new access token without requiring manual user re-authorization.

When your initial authentication occurs, store the refresh_token securely in your database. When the access token expires, send a POST request to Figma's token endpoint:

`http POST https://www.figma.com/api/oauth/token Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID& client_secret=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET& grant_type=refresh_token& refresh_token=YOUR_STORED_REFRESH_TOKEN `

Save the new access_token and the updated refresh_token returned in the JSON response to your database, and retry your failed Figma Weave API call.

Step 5: Clear SDK and Memory Cache

Sometimes, even after updating environment variables, tools like Node or Docker containers cache older credentials in memory. If you continue to receive expiration errors:

1. Stop the running process or container.
2. Clear your package builder cache (e.g., run npm cache clean --force or rebuild your Docker image using the --no-cache flag).
3. Re-run your integration tests to verify the connection stabilizes.

When to Escalate

If your newly generated tokens continue to fail immediately with 401 errors, or if you are unable to generate tokens within your Figma settings panel, your Figma organization administrator may have restricted third-party API access. Contact your workspace administrator to verify if personal access tokens or external OAuth integrations are disabled via your enterprise security policies.