Loaders & Progress Skill

How this skill behaves (read first)

This is a generative skill. The default failure modes: one spinner for everything (a full-page spinner whether the wait is 1 second or 60), no endpoint when one exists (indeterminate loops for measurable tasks), and progress theater (trackers on 2-step forms, percentages that lie). The feedback type is determined by wait duration and task structure — and a loader's real job is shaping perceived time, not decorating it. This skill gates:

1. Establish the wait type — how long, is it measurable, what initiated it, is it a multi-step journey?
2. Apply the always-true core — the duration ladder, placement, state visibility.
3. Surface the context-dependent decisions (skeletons, custom animation, tracker labeling, save/autosave) with trade-offs.

Then it hands off to ux-heuristics-audit, ux-accessibility-audit, ux-aesthetics-audit, and ux-microcopy-audit for validation.

Step 0 — Establish the wait type

Four questions pick the indicator: