Framer Motion Variants

When to Use This Skill

Apply when building multi-step animations, coordinated animations across multiple elements, or when using variants for state-based animation control. Variants are Framer Motion's way of defining reusable animation states that can be choreographed.

Related skills: For core animation props use framer-motion-core; for React integration use framer-motion-react; for scroll-driven variants use framer-motion-scroll.

Defining Variants

Variants are objects that define animation states:

const container = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0 },
  visible: {
    opacity: 1,
    transition: {
      staggerChildren: 0.1
    }
  }
};

const item = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0, y: 20 },
  visible: { opacity: 1, y: 0 }
};

function Component() {
  return (
    <motion.div
      variants={container}
      initial="hidden"
      animate="visible"
    >
      {[1, 2, 3].map(i => (
        <motion.div key={i} variants={item} />
      ))}
    </motion.div>
  );
}

Variant Types

Static Variants

const variants = {
  initial: { opacity: 0 },
  animate: { opacity: 1 },
  exit: { opacity: 0 }
};

Dynamic Variants

const variants = {
  animate: (custom) => ({
    x: custom * 100,
    opacity: 1
  })
};

Orchestration

staggerChildren

Stagger children animations:

const container = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0 },
  visible: {
    opacity: 1,
    transition: {
      staggerChildren: 0.1,
      delayChildren: 0.2
    }
  }
};

staggerDirection

transition: {
  staggerChildren: 0.1,
  staggerDirection: -1  // 1 = forward, -1 = backward
}

Repeating Animations

const variants = {
  animate: {
    scale: [1, 1.5, 1],
    transition: {
      duration: 2,
      repeat: Infinity,
      repeatType: "loop"  // "loop" | "reverse" | "mirror"
    }
  }
};

repeatType Options

Type	Behavior
"loop"	Restart from beginning
"reverse"	Play forward then backward
"mirror"	Swap states on each repeat

Keyframes

Animate through multiple values:

<motion.div
  animate={{
    x: [0, 100, -50, 0],
    backgroundColor: ["#ff0000", "#00ff00", "#0000ff"]
  }}
  transition={{
    duration: 2,
    times: [0, 0.3, 0.6, 1]
  }}
/>

State Machine with custom

const states = {
  idle: { scale: 1 },
  hovered: { scale: 1.1 },
  pressed: { scale: 0.95 }
};

function Component({ state }) {
  return (
    <motion.div
      variants={states}
      animate={state}
      custom={state}
    />
  );
}

Parent-Child Coordination

const container = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0 },
  visible: {
    opacity: 1,
    transition: {
      staggerChildren: 0.1,
      when: "beforeChildren"
    }
  }
};

const child = {
  hidden: { x: -20, opacity: 0 },
  visible: {
    x: 0,
    opacity: 1,
    transition: { duration: 0.3 }
  }
};

Best practices

• ✅ Use variants for reusable, coordinated animations.
• ✅ Use staggerChildren for list animations.
• ✅ Use custom prop to pass dynamic values.
• ✅ Define exit variants for AnimatePresence.
• ✅ Use when option for parent-child coordination.

Do Not

• ❌ Mix motion values and variants incorrectly.
• ❌ Forget that variant transitions can be overridden.
• ❌ Use too many variant states (keep to 3-5).
• ❌ Forget to pass custom when needed.

Learn More

https://www.framer.com/motion/animation/ https://www.framer.com/motion/variants/