shadcn-motion

Generate beautiful, interactive, WOW-level animated components for course materials, dashboards, hero pages, and technical demos. Hybrid aesthetic: shadcn/ui structure + smoothui motion vocabulary.

Core principle

Motion serves comprehension. WOW is what happens when motion makes something feel inevitable, not flashy.

Every animation must justify itself by one of: (a) directing attention to the next concept, (b) providing tactile feedback for an interaction, (c) revealing structure that static layouts can't show. If it does none of those, cut it.

When to use this skill

Triggering symptoms:

• "Make this page WOW", "add animations", "make this interactive"
• "Animate this number / counter / KPI / chart"
• "Hero needs to feel cinematic / premium"
• "Add scroll storytelling" or "scroll-driven reveals"
• "Dashboard tile / card needs personality"
• User mentions any of: smoothui, aceternity, magic UI, motion primitives, framer motion, motion.dev, cult UI, react bits, animate UI, kibo UI
• Building course pages where modules need narrative motion (the "interactive experience" tier above static HTML)

Skip this skill when:

• User wants static prose / docs / cheat sheets → use other content skills
• User wants a generic component (basic button, plain card) → shadcn primitives are enough; no motion needed
• The output is text-only (markdown, PDF) → motion doesn't translate

Output modes

Pick the mode that matches the deliverable. Each mode has a dedicated reference in modes/.

Mode selection flow:

Is the deliverable interactive AND multi-section AND course-like?
  → interactive-experience
Is there a Next.js project in cwd / user mentions Next or React?
  → component-snippet
Is the output one page meant to wow visitors?
  → landing-page
Is the output one tile/widget in a larger dashboard?
  → dashboard-widget
Otherwise (course page, proposal, sharable artifact):
  → single-file-html

Library decision

For any component you need, prefer in this order:

1. CDN-portable Motion patterns first (re-implementable in single-file HTML). See references/component-catalog-v1.md.
2. shadcn registry components (Magic UI, Motion Primitives, Animate UI, SmoothUI, Kibo UI, React Bits) when shipping into a Next.js project.
3. GSAP+ScrollTrigger for scroll-scrubbed timelines or pinned narratives (now 100% free as of 2026 — Webflow acquired GreenSock).
4. Lottie (via @lottiefiles/dotlottie-react) only for designer-authored vector illustrations.
5. View Transitions API for page-to-page or tab-swap morphs (Baseline as of Oct 2025).

Full library map: references/library-index.md. Top-10 catalog with real code: references/component-catalog-v1.md.

Motion vocabulary (the smoothui anchor)

The house style. Use these defaults unless a specific design calls for something else.

• Engine import: import { motion } from "motion/react" (NOT framer-motion).
• Spring: { duration: 0.5, bounce: 0.25 } (SmoothUI house spring). Bounce 0.2–0.3 is perceptible but never toy-like.
• Easing tokens (extends codebase-to-course): --ease-out: cubic-bezier(0.16, 1, 0.3, 1), --ease-spring: cubic-bezier(0.34, 1.56, 0.64, 1).
• Durations: 150ms (micro), 300ms (normal), 500ms (slow), 700ms (deliberate).
• Stagger: 60–120ms; prefer single-element springs over heavy stagger chains.
• Always: respect prefers-reduced-motion — every reveal has a fallback that just shows the final state.

Full details: references/motion-vocabulary.md.

Anti-slop rules (extends codebase-to-course)

These are absolute. If your output contains any of these, it is wrong and you must fix it before shipping.

• ❌ Purple/pink gradient hero backgrounds (the SaaS-tutorial cliché)
• ❌ Glassmorphism without intent (frosted blur as default)
• ❌ Emoji spam in headings or as visual elements
• ❌ Stock isometric illustrations
• ❌ Generic icon-card feature grids ("Fast 🚀 / Secure 🔒 / Scalable 📈")
• ❌ Continuous looping background animations that don't pause on prefers-reduced-motion
• ❌ Animations longer than 1.2s (kills perceived performance)
• ❌ Hover animations on touch-only devices
• ❌ framer-motion import when motion/react is correct (these are NOT the same package)
• ❌ Mixing framer-motion and motion/react in one project (doubles bundle)

Full list: references/anti-slop.md.

File map

shadcn-motion/
├── SKILL.md                              ← you are here
├── references/
│   ├── library-index.md                  ← 10 libraries → which to use when
│   ├── component-catalog-v1.md           ← top 10 components, real code
│   ├── component-catalog-v2.md           ← extended 20 for richer outputs
│   ├── motion-vocabulary.md              ← timing, easing, choreography
│   └── anti-slop.md                      ← forbidden patterns
├── modes/
│   ├── component-snippet.md              ← Next.js tsx mode
│   ├── single-file-html.md               ← CDN Motion mode
│   ├── dashboard-widget.md               ← data-viz mode
│   ├── interactive-experience.md         ← multi-section course mode
│   └── landing-page.md                   ← hero-driven page mode
└── examples/
    └── hero-reveal-singlefile.html       ← canonical single-file example

Quick reference

Hero text reveal → single-file-html mode + Motion whileInView + char/word stagger. See references/component-catalog-v1.md#hero-text-reveal.

KPI counter → Motion useSpring bound to useMotionValue; for single-file HTML, write a 30-line vanilla counter with requestAnimationFrame + easing. See references/component-catalog-v1.md#number-ticker.

Bento dashboard tiles → CSS grid with asymmetric spans + Magic Card border-beam edges + whileHover lift. See references/component-catalog-v1.md#bento-grid.

Scroll-driven story → GSAP ScrollTrigger pinned section with scrubbed timeline. For lighter touch, Motion useScroll + useTransform. See references/component-catalog-v1.md#sticky-scroll-reveal.

Magnetic button → SmoothUI spring: { duration: 0.6, bounce: 0.2 }. Cursor proximity → translate. See references/component-catalog-v1.md#magnetic-button.

Cross-references

This skill extends the codebase-to-course design system (~/.claude/skills/codebase-to-course/references/). DO NOT fork or duplicate that design system — import its tokens (--color-, --space-, --ease-*, fonts) and add only the motion-specific additions documented in references/motion-vocabulary.md.

For batch course-page generation, prefer codebase-to-course when the deliverable is the document; use shadcn-motion when the deliverable is the experience.