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Measured entry

magicui-kinetic-text

text-effectdark-futuristicmotion on file

A React and Tailwind text effect shipped as a TypeScript component through Magic UI's shadcn registry. It splits a supplied string into character spans, then changes weight, stroke, and spacing around the hovered letter. It relies on the shadcn cn utility, backed by clsx and tailwind-merge, and needs no provider.

Specimen
Motion capture of the mounted demo, recorded by the harness. No audio track.
Harness screenshot of magicui-kinetic-text at 375 pixels wide
Harness screenshot at 375 pixels wide. No horizontal overflow recorded.
Harness screenshot of magicui-kinetic-text at 768 pixels wide
Harness screenshot at 768 pixels wide. No horizontal overflow recorded.
Harness screenshot of magicui-kinetic-text at 1440 pixels wide
Harness screenshot at 1440 pixels wide. No horizontal overflow recorded.

Measured

Every value below was written by the harness on the run that produced the frames above. None of it is derived from the prose.

Harness measurements recorded for magicui-kinetic-text
BuildOK
MountOK
Console errors0
Uncaught page errors0
Horizontal overflowclean at 375, 768, 1440
Axe critical0
Axe serious0
Axe moderate0
Axe minor0
Gzip marginal29.7 KB (95.2 KB build, 65.5 KB baseline)
Bare modeFAIL
Provider requiredNO
Demo usedwritten from the component source API

What the harness recorded

BARE BUILD

✗ Build failed in 6m 13s
error during build:
[vite:load-fallback] Could not load <sandbox>/src/lib/utils (imported by src/cut/kinetic-text.tsx): ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '<sandbox>/src/lib/utils'

Verdict

A focused, dependency-light hover treatment that suits display copy better than body text. It builds and mounts cleanly in its intended environment, but it needs a shadcn-style setup because the bare component cannot resolve the shared cn utility.

Use it if

  • You want a short headline or prompt to react as a pointer moves across individual letters.
  • Your project already supports Tailwind arbitrary variants and the shadcn cn utility.
  • You need the visible character animation paired with a single screen-reader-readable copy of the text.

Skip it if

  • The text is long or frequently updated, since every character becomes its own element.
  • The interaction must work equally well from a keyboard or touch input, because the effect is hover-driven.
  • Your typography lacks variable or sufficiently broad font weights, which can make the main transition ineffective.
  • You do not want Tailwind-specific selectors and WebKit text-stroke styling in the component.

Install

Installation record for magicui-kinetic-text
Declared dependenciesclsx, tailwind-merge
Missing on installnone
Bare installfails once the shadcn-style helpers are removed, so it needs that setup
Providerno provider required in the harness

In a non-shadcn project, add a cn helper using clsx and tailwind-merge, either configure the @ alias for the shared utility or change that import, and ensure Tailwind scans the component and supports its arbitrary variants. Then copy the TypeScript component into the project.

Source and credit

This page is a review, not a copy. The component source lives with its author and this site does not republish it. Read the license before you use anything.

Author repository

github.com/magicuidesign/magicui
License
MIT
Record published
2026-08-17

Alternatives

Other published entries for the text-effect pattern, ordered by what they measured: mounts first, then clean axe scans, then bare-mode passes, then the smaller bundle.