The design system I'm proudest of has no impressive Figma file. What it has is a changelog written like a product blog: every component entry starts with the decision it encodes and the argument behind it.
That's because systems fail socially before they fail technically. Teams ignore a component library that answers “what does the button look like” but not “when do we add a new button variant, and who decides.” The first question has an answer; the second has a policy.
Treating the system as a product changed how I maintain it: users (designers and engineers) get onboarding, a roadmap, office hours, and a way to file issues. Adoption stopped being a persuasion problem and became a service problem.
If your system is drifting, don't audit the components. Audit the decisions: are they written down, reachable, and owned? Drift is what happens when policy lives in one designer's head.