Motion Design Patterns

What it does

This skill provides Framer Motion (now known as motion) patterns for React projects, enabling AI agents to build polished and delightful user interfaces with animations like springs, staggered reveals, layout animations, micro-interactions, scroll-triggered effects, and exit animations. It focuses on creating a premium feel through purposeful animation and prioritizes performance by recommending specific animation properties (transform and opacity) over others. The skill emphasizes that well-tuned motion is more impactful than excessive or poorly implemented animations.

When to use it

• Building or improving UI animations in a React project.
• When users request "polish," "delight," "micro-interactions," or want the UI to "feel good."
• Adding entrance/exit animations, hover effects, or page transitions.
• Creating premium experiences for lists, cards, modals, or navigation elements.
• If a user references Magic UI, Motion Primitives, or Framer Motion.

Key capabilities

• Provides pre-defined spring configurations (snappy, smooth, gentle, bouncy) for common animation needs.
• Offers patterns like "Fade + Rise Entrance" and "Staggered List" to quickly implement effective animations.
• Guides on best practices for performance optimization (animating transform and opacity only).
• Includes guidance on selecting appropriate stiffness and damping values for different animation types.

Example prompts

• “Add a ‘snappy’ spring animation to this button when it's clicked.”
• "Implement the 'Fade + Rise Entrance' pattern for this card element."
• "Create a staggered list animation for these items."

Tips & gotchas

• Dependency: Requires npm install motion to be run.
• Package Name Change: The package was renamed from framer-motion to motion. Both names work, but motion is the current recommended name.
• Subtlety is Key: Avoid large animation values (e.g., y: 100) as they can make animations feel janky; subtle movements (12–24px) are generally preferred for a premium feel.