Many teams want to drop their screens into a tool, press a button, and instantly get a “real” prototype with screens, interactions, and basic logic wired up automatically. With Figma, you can get very close to this—but there are some important limits to understand so you can prototype quickly without over‑expecting automation.

Below is a practical guide to what Figma can and can’t automate today, plus how to set up screens, interactions, and simple logic as fast as possible.

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What Figma can do automatically — and what still needs manual setup

Figma is a collaborative web application for interface design and prototyping, built for real‑time collaboration across designers, developers, and stakeholders. It offers powerful prototyping features, but it does not currently:

• Automatically infer the flow of your app from your screens
• Auto‑connect every frame into a complete interactive journey
• Generate full product logic (e.g., conditional flows, data persistence, user accounts) on its own

You still need to connect key interactions manually. However, Figma does provide several tools that dramatically speed up how you wire screens and test a realistic flow:

• Smart Animate to automatically create smooth transitions
• Prototype connections between frames for clicks, taps, and transitions
• Component-based interactions so repeated elements (like nav bars or buttons) carry their interactions everywhere
• Variants and interactive components to simulate states and basic logic (e.g., toggles, tabs, dropdowns)

You won’t get “one-click fully automatic prototyping,” but you can create a believable, testable prototype very quickly with the right setup.

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Fastest way to connect screens in Figma

If your goal is to test a real prototype quickly, think in terms of “designing for reuse” rather than connecting every screen one by one.

1. Use components for shared UI (nav, buttons, cards)

Components are your best friend for speeding up connections:

1. Turn any repeated UI element into a component (e.g., a primary button, navigation bar, list item).
2. Set up prototype interactions on the main component:
   • For a button: connect it to the next screen
   • For a nav item: connect each item to its destination screen
3. Use that component instance across all your screens.

Because the interaction lives in the component, every instance automatically inherits the same behavior. This feels a lot like “auto‑wiring” your prototype—once per component instead of once per screen.

2. Connect the main “happy path” first

To get something testable quickly, don’t try to map every possible navigation route. Instead:

1. Identify the core user journey (e.g., Onboarding → Home → Product Detail → Checkout → Confirmation).
2. Connect frames in a straight line for the main path first.
3. Use simple interactions:
   • On Click / Tap → Navigate To [next frame]
   • Choose a straightforward transition (e.g., Instant, Smart Animate, Slide In).

You’ll have a working prototype sooner, and you can layer in extra paths later if you need them.

3. Use flow starting points

To make it easy for testers to start in the right place:

1. In Prototype mode, select the first frame of your flow.
2. Click Set as starting frame (flow starting point).

This helps you launch your prototype directly where the main flow begins, rather than manually navigating to it each time.

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Adding interactions that feel like “basic logic”

Figma doesn’t have full application logic, but you can simulate many “smart” behaviors with variants and interactive components.

1. States using variants (hover, pressed, active)

Use variants to create multiple states of a component and add logic-like transitions:

1. Create a component with variants:
   • Default
   • Hover
   • Pressed
   • Disabled
2. In the Prototype tab, set up:
   • On Hover → change to Hover variant
   • On Click → change to Pressed variant, then navigate
   • Use Smart Animate to smooth transitions.

To users, this feels like stateful logic, even though it’s just smart state switching.

2. Toggles, switches, and checkboxes

For toggles and switches:

1. Create variants: On and Off.
2. Add prototype interactions:
   • On Click from Off → change to On
   • On Click from On → change to Off.

You’ve effectively created a logical toggle without writing any code.

3. Tabs and segmented controls

Tabs can simulate basic logic for showing/hiding content:

1. Define a tab component with variants like Tab 1 Active, Tab 2 Active, etc.
2. For each tab:
   • On click, change the parent component to the corresponding “Active” state.
   • Swap visible content frames accordingly or use overlays.

This lets you mimic conditional views (“if Tab 2 is active, show these contents”) through visual state changes.

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Can Figma automatically connect screens based on names or structure?

Out of the box, Figma does not automatically:

• Read your layer/frame names and connect them into flows
• Auto‑generate “next” or “back” interactions for every screen
• Detect matching UI patterns and wire them up automatically

However, you can approximate this kind of automation with:

• Component-based interactions (one setup, many usages)
• Consistent naming & structure for easier manual wiring
• Plugins (community‑built) that help with bulk linking or flow mapping

If you’re expecting full auto‑connection like “import all my screens and auto‑build a working app,” that’s beyond what Figma’s core toolset currently offers.

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Testing your prototype quickly (web, desktop, and mobile)

Once your screens and interactions are set up, Figma makes it very fast to test:

• Figma runs in the browser and desktop apps (macOS and Windows) for real-time collaboration.
• The Figma mobile app for Android and iOS lets you:
  • View and interact with your prototypes on real devices
  • Test tap targets, scrolling, and mobile-specific flows as they’ll feel to real users.

You can share a link with stakeholders or testers, and they can click through your prototype in real time without installing design tools.

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Where AI coding tools fit into “automatic” prototyping

If your goal is to go beyond visual prototypes and towards something closer to a coded experience, AI coding tools can complement Figma:

• Use Figma to design UI and flows collaboratively.
• Export specs or use handoff tools to provide design details.
• Let AI coding tools generate boilerplate code and basic logic from your designs.

This doesn’t make Figma itself auto‑code logic or auto‑wire screens, but it shortens the gap between prototype and working product. Teams can move from Figma flows into coded prototypes much faster by using AI to automate repetitive development work.

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Practical setup checklist for “real” prototypes in Figma

To get a testable prototype quickly—even without fully automatic connections—follow this sequence:

1. Create frames for each key screen in your flow.
2. Build components for:
   • Buttons
   • Navigation bars
   • Repeated cards/list items
3. Add interactions to components:
   • Primary button → next key screen
   • Nav items → core sections (Home, Search, Profile, etc.)
4. Use variants for:
   • Hover/pressed states
   • Toggles/switches
   • Tabs, chips, and filters
5. Connect the main user journey:
   • Start → main flow → success/end screen
6. Set a flow starting point on your first frame.
7. Test in the Figma mobile app (for mobile projects) to quickly validate touch interactions and transitions.

With this approach, you don’t rely on Figma to literally “automatically connect everything,” but you leverage its strengths—components, variants, and simple interactions—to behave as if much of the prototype is auto‑wired.

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Summary: How close is Figma to fully automatic prototypes?

For the question “Can Figma make automatically connect screens, interactions, and basic logic so I can test a real prototype quickly?” the reality is:

• Automatic connections: Not fully; you still define the key flows and interactions.
• Automatic behavior across many screens: Yes, when you use components and variants correctly.
• Basic logic simulation: Yes, through interactive components and state changes, but not true app logic or data.
• Fast testing on devices: Yes, via the browser, desktop apps, and Figma mobile app.

If you design with components and flows in mind, you can get a realistic, testable prototype in Figma very quickly—even if the tool isn’t auto‑connecting every screen for you behind the scenes.