Sets the physics that make motion feel premium - the productive/expressive duration split, near-critically damped spring-ratio defaults with a runtime translation table, enter/exit asymmetry, translate-distance caps, stagger budgets, and the arbitration rules for bounce, scroll pinning, and camera moves. Use when someone asks "should this animation bounce or settle", "what spring damping should our brand use", "can a marketing animation run longer than product UI motion", "why does default ease feel synthetic", "is a long hero reveal too slow", or motion works technically but feels templated. Do NOT use to build the duration and easing token system - use animation-system instead; for one component's exact keyframes and handoff, use motion-spec; for animating text, use kinetic-typography.
---
name: premium-motion-feel
description: Sets the physics that make motion feel premium - the productive/expressive duration split, near-critically damped spring-ratio defaults with a runtime translation table, enter/exit asymmetry, translate-distance caps, stagger budgets, and the arbitration rules for bounce, scroll pinning, and camera moves. Use when someone asks "should this animation bounce or settle", "what spring damping should our brand use", "can a marketing animation run longer than product UI motion", "why does default ease feel synthetic", "is a long hero reveal too slow", or motion works technically but feels templated. Do NOT use to build the duration and easing token system - use animation-system instead; for one component's exact keyframes and handoff, use motion-spec; for animating text, use kinetic-typography.
---
# premium-motion-feel
Nothing physical moves linearly, so default curves read synthetic on sight.
Ease-out front-loads velocity so the interface responds to the user instead of
performing at them, and springs preserve velocity across interruption the way
physical mass does. The costly mistake this skill prevents: motion that passes
every technical review and still feels like a template, because feel lives in
physics choices no token system encodes by itself. This skill is the judgment
layer; animation-system is the vocabulary those judgments get written down in.
## Operating procedure
Follow the steps in order. The mode split comes first because every other rule
is per-mode; physics comes before distances, and distances before
choreography, because the curve determines how far a move can travel before it
reads theatrical.
### Step 1: Gather the charter and the motion inventory
Ask for these five inputs. If a number is a guess, label it a guess and move… install to load the full skill