| name | hypnotic-pattern |
| description | Hypnotic Pattern mesmerizes everyone who looks at it. The real-world version is attention design: loading animations, progress indicators, onboarding flows, and visual patterns that keep users oriented and engaged during a bounded experience. The line between helpful focus and addictive capture is the central design tension. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| author | Wizards of the Ghosts |
| license | CC0-1.0 |
| compatibility | Hermes Agent skills system |
| metadata | {"hermes":{"tags":["spell","shipping-now","metaphorical","influence-and-behavior","influence","behavior","attention","engagement"]}} |
Hypnotic Pattern
Design attention-capture patterns that hold focus in a bounded context.
What This Skill Does
Hypnotic Pattern mesmerizes everyone who looks at it. The real-world version is attention design: loading animations, progress indicators, onboarding flows, and visual patterns that keep users oriented and engaged during a bounded experience. The line between helpful focus and addictive capture is the central design tension.
In this grimoire, Hypnotic Pattern is treated as a metaphorical spell with a shipping-now delivery profile.
Canonical reference input: Hypnotic Pattern (spell).
When To Use
- A flow, onboarding sequence, or presentation needs better attention-holding mechanics.
- Users are dropping off during a multi-step process and you need to understand why and how to keep them.
Prerequisites
- No extra runtime dependencies beyond Hermes Agent and the normal toolset for this session.
Procedure
- Restate the target, the success condition, and any no-touch boundaries before taking action.
- Identify the experience and its attention drop-off points.
- Design engagement patterns: progress indicators, micro-rewards, curiosity gaps, or visual anchors.
- Map the boundary: when should the pattern release attention? Hypnotic Pattern has a duration, not an infinity.
- Deliver the attention design with an explicit note on where engagement becomes compulsion.
- Package the result as the deliverables below, with confidence, assumptions, and unresolved risk called out explicitly.
Deliverables
- Attention-capture patterns tailored to the specific flow or experience.
- A boundary specification: when the pattern should deliberately release the user's attention.
Pitfalls / Guardrails
- Keep the metaphor anchored to a real mechanism instead of drifting into lore.
- Distinguish attention-capture from addiction mechanics. This spell has a duration — it is not designed to hold attention indefinitely.
- Refuse infinite scroll, autoplay-without-end, or engagement patterns designed to prevent the user from leaving.
Verification
- Check that the result includes every deliverable promised above.
- Check that confirmed facts, assumptions, and inferences are visibly separated.
- Check that the metaphor still maps cleanly to a real operational mechanism.
Example Invocation
/hypnotic-pattern design attention-holding mechanics for this [flow/onboarding/presentation], with clear boundaries on when to let go
