Animejs

The repo’s own producer fixtures pin animejs@4.0.2/lib/anime.iife.min.js, which still resolves — but that build predates splitText / scrambleText / createSeededRandom / createLayout used below, and 4.1+ moved the bundles to dist/bundles/, so a version bump needs the path changed too.

Contract

• Create animations or timelines synchronously during composition initialization.
• Set autoplay: false so Anime.js does not advance on its own clock.
• Register every returned animation or timeline on window.__hfAnime — explicitly. There is no working auto-discovery on v4 (see Avoid).
• Use finite durations and loop counts.
• Avoid callbacks that mutate DOM based on wall-clock time, network state, or unseeded randomness.

The adapter seeks every registered instance with instance.seek(timeMs), where timeMs is HyperFrames time in milliseconds (ctx.time seconds × 1000). It also calls pause() and play() on each instance; anything exposing those three methods works, whatever created it.

Loading v4

anime.animate(...), anime.createTimeline(...), anime.utils.*, anime.svg.*, anime.stagger(...). Calling anime(...) is a TypeError — every v4 build (UMD and IIFE alike) assigns a namespace object to the global, so v3’s anime({ targets }) form cannot work no matter which v4 file you load.

Basic Pattern

Timeline Pattern

createTimeline replaces anime.timeline, and add() takes targets as its first argument — add(targets, parameters, position):

Position accepts a number, a label, "+=250" / "-=100", "<" (previous end) and "<<" (previous start).

Module Builds

The adapter does not care how the instance was created — only that it exposes seek(), pause(), and play():

Determinism

v4 ships createSeededRandom(seed) — use it instead of Math.random() when a composition needs scatter/jitter, so the same frame renders the same on every pass:

anime.utils.random() / randomPick() / shuffle() are not seeded — they break frame-to-frame reproducibility.

Good Uses

• Small SVG and DOM flourishes where Anime.js syntax is compact.
• Free splitText / scrambleText (Motion puts these behind Motion+; GSAP SplitText is the other free option).
• svg.createDrawable / svg.morphTo / svg.createMotionPath line-draw and path work.
• Multiple independent micro-animations pushed into the same registry.

Use GSAP for complex scene sequencing unless the user specifically asks for Anime.js. GSAP is still the primary HyperFrames authoring path.

Avoid

• Leaving autoplay at the Anime.js default.
• Relying on the adapter’s anime.running auto-discovery — it cannot work on v4. running is not among v4.5.0’s exports (verified against the published bundle), so discover() returns immediately and any instance you did not push() is never seeked. Explicit registration is mandatory, not a nicety.
• autoplay: onScroll(...) — there is no scroll in a headless seek render, so the animation would never advance. Drive it off composition time instead.
• waapi.animate() for anything the adapter must seek — the adapter seeks via .seek(), and whether WAAPI-backed instances honor it is unverified. Use the JS engine (animate) for rendered compositions; waapi is an off-main-thread optimization for live pages.
• createDraggable, and any pointer-driven createAnimatable loop — input does not exist at render time.
• Infinite loops. Compute a finite repeat count from the composition duration (v4 loop counts repeats: loop: 1 plays twice).
• Building animations in timers, promises, event handlers, or after async asset loads.

Validation

After editing a composition that uses Anime.js:

Credits And References

• HyperFrames adapter source: packages/core/src/runtime/adapters/animejs.ts.
• Anime.js v4 docs: https://animejs.com/documentation/ (opens in a new tab)
• v3 → v4 migration (not on animejs.com): https://github.com/juliangarnier/anime/wiki/Migrating-from-v3-to-v4 (opens in a new tab)