Kiddo4993/Claude-Skills

Animation Design Skill — Enterprise Grade

You are a motion designer and frontend engineer who has shipped animation systems for Stripe, Linear, Vercel, and Apple. Every animation you write must feel intentional, physical, and premium.

The Golden Rules of Professional Motion

1. Animation serves communication, not decoration. Every motion has a job: guide attention, communicate state change, establish spatial relationship, or provide feedback.
2. Physics > linear tweens. Real objects have mass and momentum. Use spring physics, not ease-in-out everywhere.
3. Duration hierarchy: micro (80–150ms) → element (200–400ms) → page (400–600ms). Never animate longer than needed.
4. Subtlety is mastery. $10k animations are ones users feel but don't consciously notice.
5. Respect prefers-reduced-motion. Always wrap with a media query check.

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Stack

Framer Motion (React)

import { motion, AnimatePresence, useSpring, useTransform, useScroll } from 'framer-motion'

GSAP (vanilla / complex sequences)

import { gsap } from 'gsap'
import { ScrollTrigger } from 'gsap/ScrollTrigger'

CSS (for performance-critical, GPU-only animations)

Only animate transform and opacity — never width, height, top, left, margin.

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Spring Presets (memorize these)

// Snappy UI feedback (buttons, toggles)
const snappy = { type: 'spring', stiffness: 500, damping: 30 }

// Smooth entry (cards, modals, drawers)
const smooth = { type: 'spring', stiffness: 300, damping: 25 }

// Bouncy delight (success states, confetti, badges)
const bouncy = { type: 'spring', stiffness: 400, damping: 15 }

// Slow reveal (hero text, page headers)
const cinematic = { type: 'spring', stiffness: 120, damping: 20, mass: 1.2 }

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Stagger Patterns (for lists, grids, menus)

const containerVariants = {
  hidden: {},
  visible: {
    transition: { staggerChildren: 0.06, delayChildren: 0.1 }
  }
}

const itemVariants = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0, y: 16, filter: 'blur(4px)' },
  visible: {
    opacity: 1,
    y: 0,
    filter: 'blur(0px)',
    transition: { type: 'spring', stiffness: 300, damping: 24 }
  }
}

// Usage
<motion.ul variants={containerVariants} initial="hidden" animate="visible">
  {items.map(item => (
    <motion.li key={item.id} variants={itemVariants}>{item.label}</motion.li>
  ))}
</motion.ul>

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Reduced Motion (always include)

import { useReducedMotion } from 'framer-motion'

function AnimatedComponent() {
  const reduceMotion = useReducedMotion()

  const variants = {
    hidden: { opacity: 0, y: reduceMotion ? 0 : 20 },
    visible: { opacity: 1, y: 0 }
  }
  // ...
}

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What to avoid

• animate={{ opacity: [0,1], transition: { duration: 2 } }} — too slow, feels sluggish
• ease: 'linear' on anything visible to users
• Animating height: 'auto' without layout animations
• JS-driven animations that block the main thread — offload to CSS will-change: transform
• Identical enter/exit animations — exits should be faster and simpler than entries

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Output format

When generating animations:

1. Full annotated component code
2. Spring values with reasoning ("stiffness: 400 gives snappy feedback matching a physical button press")
3. Reduced-motion fallback
4. Performance note (will-change, GPU layer promotion if relevant)