Two skills in the catalog share the slug after-effects and share nothing else. A third row is the same aedev-tools bundle indexed under the repo's old name. The aedev-tools one generates ExtendScript and runs it against a live copy of After Effects on macOS. The dylantarre one writes no automation at all, and turns Disney's 12 animation principles into frame counts and expressions. Installing the wrong one wastes an afternoon.
Both are compared with install commands in our After Effects skills guide for Claude Code. Disclosure: we run Skillselion, an independent directory of agent skills for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other coding agents. We are not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor or any publisher named below. Install counts below come from the live catalog, refreshed daily from skills.sh, GitHub and MCP registries, ranked by real installs, read on October 20, 2026.
Which after-effects skill should Claude Code load?
The more installed of the two is the one that does less. dylantarre after-effects has 859 installs as of October 20, 2026, against 583 for aedev-tools after-effects. Their repos are dylantarre/animation-principles and aedev-tools/adobe-agent-skills.
They split cleanly by the kind of question you are asking.
| dylantarre after-effects | aedev-tools after-effects | |
|---|---|---|
| Installs, October 20, 2026 | 859 | 583 |
| What it emits | keyframe plans, timing tables, expressions | JSX ExtendScript, executed |
| Runs where | anywhere | macOS with After Effects open |
| Bundled files | 1 SKILL.md | 53, including 41 .jsx scripts |
| Good for | what the timing should be | renaming 200 layers |
The aedev-tools skill states its own mechanism in one sentence: "This skill automates After Effects by generating ExtendScript (.jsx) and executing it via osascript. It reads project state through query scripts, uses rule files for domain knowledge, and wraps all mutations in undo groups."
Source: aedev-tools/adobe-agent-skills, skills/after-effects/SKILL.md, "Overview"
Two things in that bundle are worth reading before you install it. Its front matter grants allowed-tools: Bash(osascript *) Bash(chmod *) Bash(bash *) Read Write, so a wildcard osascript grant is the price of entry, and osascript is not scoped to After Effects. And its query scripts write results to the fixed path /tmp/ae-assistant-result.json, which is shared across every project you run it from.
The skill is also careful about context in a way most bundles are not. Its project overview script defaults to a digest: "This returns a summary by default: folder tree with counts, all comps listed, footage grouped by file type. NOT every individual file."
Source: aedev-tools/adobe-agent-skills, skills/after-effects/SKILL.md, "Step 1: Gather context"
What does the animation-principles skill actually give the model?
Numbers instead of adjectives. Its whole value is that it replaces "make it snappy" with a table Claude can read:
| Frames | Feel |
|---|---|
| 2-4 | Snappy, instant |
| 6-8 | Quick, energetic |
| 12-15 | Normal pace |
| 20-30 | Slow, heavy |
| 40+ | Dramatic, weighted |
Source: dylantarre/animation-principles, skills/09-by-tool-framework/after-effects/SKILL.md, "9. Timing"
Anticipation gets the same treatment, as a four-part timeline: 0 to 10 frames of wind-up, 10 to 12 for the transition, 12 to 30 for the main action, 30 to 40 for the settle. That is the kind of thing an agent can apply without a second round of prompting.
One line in it is easy to over-read, and we did on first pass. Under Exaggeration the file says "Push values 20-50% beyond realistic", and directly above that sentence sits an overshoot expression whose amplitude is amp = 15. The amplitude is in the property's own units, not a percentage. On Scale, where the base value is 100, amp = 15 is roughly the 15% the prose implies. On Position, measured in pixels, it is 15 pixels and the percentage has no meaning. The bounce expression further down the same file uses amp = 80 for the same reason. Read the percentages as intent and the expressions as code.
Why is hyperframes motion-graphics the most installed motion skill?
Because it is the one that renders. On October 20, 2026 the top row of the Trending in search rail on our homepage was the hyperframes motion-graphics skill, flagged Breakout for Google search over the last 30 days, at about 499,000 installs and 44,184 GitHub stars, from heygen-com/hyperframes. That is about 580 times the installs of either After Effects skill.
It is not an After Effects skill at all. It produces short unnarrated pieces, kinetic typography, stat count-ups, chart hits, logo stings and lower thirds, and renders to MP4 or a transparent overlay without an editor in the loop. Its ordering rule is the part worth stealing even if you never install it: "Asset-first: decide the asset strategy and source real material before designing the shot, then design the shot around what you have, then compose by reusing catalog capabilities."
Source: heygen-com/hyperframes, skills/motion-graphics/SKILL.md, "dispatch entry"
The same repo holds hyperframes lottie at 69,051 installs and hyperframes css-animations at 72,304, both read on October 20, 2026.
The demand curve here points away from the desktop. Skills that produce an artifact a browser or a pipeline can consume are installed in the hundreds of thousands. Skills that drive a desktop application are installed in the hundreds. Most of that gap is the platform requirement. The hyperframes skill asks for "macOS Apple Silicon or Linux x64" plus node and ffmpeg, which describes a CI runner, while the aedev-tools skill needs a licensed copy of After Effects running on a Mac with a specific preference toggled on.
How do you get an After Effects animation into a web page?
Export to Lottie, then stop thinking about After Effects. The dylantarre lottie-bodymovin skill (583 installs, October 20, 2026) covers the export decisions and restates the same 12 principles against the runtime calls that control them, and the playback half lives in the hyperframes lottie skill above. Airbnb's Lottie documentation is the primary reference for the player APIs, and our Lottie animations guide for Claude Code walks the full pipeline.
If you never open After Effects in the first place, the two routes worth knowing are video-motion-graphics (2,283 installs) for the planning vocabulary and the hyperframes skill for the render. Our motion design skill guide sets out when each one is the right call.
A stack that fits on one line each
- Timing and principle decisions, anywhere: dylantarre after-effects, 859 installs.
- Batch work inside the app, macOS only: aedev-tools after-effects, 583 installs.
- Export decisions for the web: lottie-bodymovin, 583 installs.
- Rendering without an editor: hyperframes motion-graphics, about 499,000 installs.
npx skills add dylantarre/animation-principles --skill after-effects
npx skills add aedev-tools/adobe-agent-skills --skill after-effects
Read the SKILL.md before you install either one. The dylantarre repo was last pushed on December 30, 2025 and the aedev-tools repo on March 2, 2026, so the catalog copy of a fast-moving skill can lag what the author currently says, and the files above are what we pulled from GitHub on October 20, 2026.
FAQ
Is there an official After Effects skill for Claude Code?
No. Both skills are community published. aedev-tools after-effects (583 installs) automates the app through ExtendScript, dylantarre after-effects (859 installs) teaches the principles. Neither comes from Adobe or Anthropic.
Can Claude Code control After Effects on Linux or in CI?
No. The automation skill calls osascript against a running macOS copy of After Effects, so it has no path on Linux and none in a container. If you need motion output from a pipeline, the hyperframes route is the one that runs there.
Why is runner.sh reporting no result file?
Almost always the scripting preference. Preferences, Scripting and Expressions, "Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network" has to be on before any query script can write /tmp/ae-assistant-result.json.
Which motion skill has the most installs?
hyperframes motion-graphics, at about 499,000 installs on October 20, 2026. The motion subset is collected on the animation and motion hub, and the wider field is ranked on the best skills for frontend design shortlist.
Last updated October 20, 2026.
One suggestion for anyone publishing a skill named after an application: say in the description whether you drive the app or teach the craft. Two skills sharing a slug and splitting 1,442 installs between them is what happens when the name is the only thing a search can read.
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