version: "1.0.1" 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." user-invocable: true

Hypnotic Pattern

Design attention-capture patterns that hold focus in a bounded context.

Overview

Hypnotic Pattern is interpreted here as a metaphorical spell with a shipping-now execution model.

Canonical source: Hypnotic Pattern (spell)

Provider target: OpenClaw

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.

Workflow

1. Identify the experience and its attention drop-off points.
2. Design engagement patterns: progress indicators, micro-rewards, curiosity gaps, or visual anchors.
3. Map the boundary: when should the pattern release attention? Hypnotic Pattern has a duration, not an infinity.
4. Deliver the attention design with an explicit note on where engagement becomes compulsion.

Deliverables

• Attention-capture patterns tailored to the specific flow or experience.
• A boundary specification: when the pattern should deliberately release the user's attention.

Guardrails

• 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.

Default Invocation

Use $hypnotic-pattern to design attention-holding mechanics for this [flow/onboarding/presentation], with clear boundaries on when to let go.