What is the review-animations skill?
The review-animations skill is a SKILL.md in emilkowalski/skills. It makes an AI coding agent review animation code against ten non-negotiable standards, flag escalation triggers on sight, and return a Before, After, Why table followed by a verdict of Block or Approve. It reviews only. It does not write features.
The review-animations skill is a strict reviewer for motion code. It sets the agent up as a senior design engineer with a brutal eye for craft, and its stance is to default to flagging, because approval is earned, not assumed.
It does one thing. It will not write features, fix unrelated bugs, or review non-motion code. The bar comes from Emil Kowalski's animation philosophy, and a bundled STANDARDS.md holds the curves, durations and spring values it cites.
What changes in your agent's output
- Motion that merely runs no longer passes. A transition that is sluggish, from the wrong origin or too frequent is a regression.
- Findings arrive as one markdown table of Before, After and Why, never as a loose list.
- Remaining comments are grouped by impact tier, from feel-breaking regressions down to accessibility.
- The review ends with an explicit decision, Block or Approve, with file and line citations.
The ten non-negotiable standards
- Justified motion: every animation answers why it animates.
- Frequency-appropriate: keyboard-initiated and 100-plus-per-day actions get no animation.
- Responsive easing: ease-out or a strong custom curve, and ease-in on UI is a block.
- Sub-300ms UI: slower durations need a justification.
- Origin and physical correctness: popovers scale from their trigger and nothing starts from scale(0).
- Interruptibility: rapid or gesture-driven motion retargets from its current state.
- GPU-only properties: animate transform and opacity.
- Accessibility: reduced motion is honored and hover motion is gated.
- Asymmetric enter and exit: deliberate actions are slower, responses snap.
- Cohesion: motion matches the component's personality and the product.
Who the review-animations skill is for
Best for
- Pull requests that add or change transitions, toasts, drawers, popovers or gestures.
- Teams that want a consistent, written bar for motion instead of taste debates.
- Developers who want a blocking review that cites exact values.
Not for
- Auditing a whole codebase and writing fix plans. improve-animations is built for that.
- Writing new animation features. Use emil-design-eng for that.
- General code review. The skill declines and points you to a general review skill.
Use it with UiChemy
UiChemy Composer writes real HTML, CSS and JS inside Elementor or Gutenberg, so the motion in a page is code you can review. Run this skill over the CSS, then check effect names with animation-vocabulary. Click Get Started on uichemy.com.
How to install Review Animations Skill: Motion Code Review for Agents
git clone https://github.com/emilkowalski/skills.gitClone the repository
Run
git clone https://github.com/emilkowalski/skills.git. The skill is the skills/review-animations folder.Copy the skill folder
Copy skills/review-animations into your agent's skills folder with SKILL.md and STANDARDS.md together. SKILL.md points to STANDARDS.md for exact values.
Invoke it on a diff
Ask for review-animations on a pull request or component. Its metadata disables automatic model invocation, so name the skill when you want it.
Check that it loaded
Invoke review-animations with no question. The agent should reply with a single line saying it is ready to review your animations. Then give it a component using transition all and ease-in; it should flag both in a table.
Key features
- Default-to-flag postureThe skill sets the agent's bias toward motion that feels right, not motion that merely runs. Approval has to be earned by the diff.
- Ten standardsJustification, frequency, easing, sub-300ms UI, origin, interruptibility, GPU-only properties, accessibility, asymmetric timing and cohesion are each a source of findings.
- Escalation triggersItems flagged on sight include transition all, scale(0) entrances, ease-in on UI, animation on keyboard actions, durations over 300ms and ungated hover motion.
- Remedial hierarchyFixes are proposed in order: delete the animation, reduce it, fix easing, fix origin, make it interruptible, move it to the GPU, then asymmetric timing, polish and accessibility.
- Findings tablePart one is a single table of Before, After and Why with one row per issue, such as swapping transition all for specific properties.
- Tiered verdictPart two groups commentary by impact: feel-breaking regressions, missed simplifications, performance, interruptibility, origin and cohesion, then accessibility.
- Block or ApproveAny feel-breaking regression, keyboard-triggered animation, scale(0) or ease-in on UI, or non-GPU animation with an easy fix blocks the change.
- STANDARDS.md catalogA bundled file holds easing curves, duration tables, spring configuration, gestures, clip-path, performance and accessibility rules, loaded when a finding needs a precise value.
- Quiet first replyInvoked with no question, the agent replies with a single ready line and nothing else until you ask for a review.
- Slow-motion adviceWhen feel is unclear, the skill recommends slow motion, frame-by-frame review and fresh eyes the next day over guessing.
Frequently asked questions
What is the review-animations skill?
It is the skills/review-animations folder in emilkowalski/skills. Its SKILL.md makes an AI coding agent review animation and motion code against ten standards and return a findings table, grouped commentary and a Block or Approve decision.
How do I install the review-animations skill?
Clone emilkowalski/skills with git, copy skills/review-animations into your agent's skills folder, and keep STANDARDS.md beside SKILL.md. Because automatic invocation is disabled, ask for the skill by name when you want a review.
What does the skill block on?
A feel-breaking regression, animation on a keyboard or high-frequency action, scale(0) or ease-in on UI, or a non-GPU animation that has an easy GPU fix. Clean diffs within the duration and easing bounds are approved.
Does it fix the animation code?
No. It reviews only. It does not write features or fix unrelated bugs. Its fixes appear as After values in the table, in a preference order that starts with deleting the animation.
How is it different from improve-animations?
This skill judges one diff or component. improve-animations audits all the motion in a codebase and writes plan files for other agents to execute. Both rely on the same craft bar.
Which AI agents can use the review-animations skill?
The repository gives no per-agent list. The skill is a plain SKILL.md folder with a companion STANDARDS.md file, so any AI coding agent that loads skill folders can read and follow it.
Where should I start with Emil Kowalski's skills?
Start with emil-design-eng to write motion well, then use this skill to check what the agent wrote. The animation-vocabulary skill helps you name effects when you write the request, and the repository README lists the other skills.