frames/skills/frames-registry/references/contributing.md

Contributing a Block or Component to the Registry

Guide the user from idea to merged PR for a new registry block or component.

Workflow

1. Clarify → 2. Scaffold → 3. Build → 4. Validate → 5. Preview → 6. Ship

Step 1: Clarify

Ask what they're building. The registry has two item types:

• Block (registry/blocks/, type frames:block) — a full standalone composition with fixed dimensions and duration. Caption styles, VFX effects, title cards, lower thirds.
• Component (registry/components/, type frames:component) — a reusable snippet with no fixed dimensions or duration. CSS effects, text treatments, overlays that adapt to any composition size.

Then ask:

• One-sentence description of the effect
• Visual reference (URL, screenshot, or description)
• Who uses this and when?

Step 2: Scaffold

Create the registry structure:

For blocks:

registry/blocks/{block-name}/
  {block-name}.html
  registry-item.json

For components:

registry/components/{component-name}/
  {component-name}.html
  registry-item.json

Naming convention:

Item name	ID prefix	Example IDs
cap-hormozi	hz	hz-cg-0, hz-cw-3
cap-typewriter	tw	tw-cg-0, tw-ch-0-5
vfx-chrome	vc	vc-canvas

Use a 2-3 letter prefix. ALL element IDs must use this prefix to avoid collisions in sub-compositions.

registry-item.json — use the canonical templates in templates.md (block and component variants, both with all required fields).

Step 3: Build

Apply the correct template based on type. See templates.md for copy-paste starters.

Caption blocks

Non-negotiable caption rules:

• Font: 96px minimum for proportional fonts. 64-72px acceptable for monospace (wider characters need less size).
• Readability: -webkit-text-stroke: 2-3px OR multi-layer text-shadow
• Overflow: call window.__frames.fitTextFontSize() on every group
• Karaoke: highlight active word via tl.to(wordEl, { color/scale }, WORDS[wi].start)
• Hard kill: tl.set(groupEl, { opacity: 0, visibility: "hidden" }, g.end) on EVERY group
• Never use tl.from(el, { opacity: 0 }) at the same position as tl.set(el, { opacity: 1 }) — the from clobbers the set. Use tl.to instead.

Per-character animation (typewriter, scramble):

• Wrap each character in <span> with ID {prefix}-ch-{group}-{char}
• Stagger via tl.set at computed intervals from word timestamps
• Cursors/decorative elements: use tl.set at intervals — NOT CSS animation (not seekable)

Positioning variants:

• Centered: display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;
• Lower-third: position: absolute; bottom: 100px; left: 0; width: 100%; text-align: center;
• Left-aligned: position: absolute; bottom: 100px; left: 120px; text-align: left;

VFX blocks (Three.js)

• Use [email protected] from CDN (global script)
• tl.eventCallback("onUpdate", renderScene); renderScene(); — NO requestAnimationFrame
• State proxy pattern: GSAP animates plain JS object, render function reads it
• Seeded PRNG (mulberry32) for randomness

All types

• data-composition-id MUST match window.__timelines["id"]
• All element IDs prefixed with block abbreviation
• gsap.timeline({ paused: true }) — always paused
• No Math.random(), no Date.now()

Step 4: Validate

frames lint                    # 0 errors required
frames check --no-contrast  # 0 console errors required

Step 5: Preview

# Render preview video
frames render -o preview.mp4

# Snapshot for visual QA
frames snapshot --at "1.0,3.0,5.0,7.0"

# Publish to frames.hanzo.ai for review
npx @hanzo/frames publish

Catalog preview image — The catalog card uses a PNG at docs/images/catalog/{kind}/{name}.png (where {kind} is blocks or components). Generate it from a snapshot, then:

• Maintainers: regenerate previews with bun run generate:catalog-previews; they are served from the docs site's own /images/ path, so nothing is uploaded anywhere
• External contributors: attach the preview MP4 to your PR description. A maintainer will generate the catalog image before merging.

Step 6: Ship

All steps are required. Missing any one produces a broken catalog entry.

{kind} is blocks or components depending on what you built in Step 1.

# 1. Create branch
git checkout -b feat/registry-{name}

# 2. Format HTML
npx oxfmt registry/{kind}/{name}/*.html

# 3. Update registry/registry.json — add entry to the "items" array:
#    { "name": "{name}", "type": "frames:block" }  (or "frames:component")

# 4. Generate catalog docs page
npx tsx scripts/generate-catalog-pages.ts

# 5. Publish to frames.hanzo.ai so reviewers can preview
npx @hanzo/frames publish

# 6. Stage everything
git add registry/{kind}/{name}/ registry/registry.json docs/catalog/

# 7. Commit
git commit -m "feat(registry): add {name} — {one sentence}"

# 8. Push and open PR with frames.hanzo.ai link
git push origin feat/registry-{name}
gh pr create --title "feat(registry): {name}" --body "preview: {frames.hanzo.ai-url}"

If you don't have a GitHub account: you need one to open a PR. Sign up at https://github.com/signup, then run gh auth login.

Quality Gate

• frames lint → 0 errors
• frames check → 0 console errors
• npx oxfmt --check passes
• registry/registry.json updated with new entry
• scripts/generate-catalog-pages.ts run (docs page generated)
• npx @hanzo/frames publish run (claim your project URL)
• Preview MP4 attached to PR (external) or catalog PNG uploaded (internal)
• All IDs unique and prefixed