Mimicry — behavioral Agent Skill

Apply behavioral mimicry — making an interface element behave like a familiar physical object so the user''s physical-world intuitions…

Context cost
4.6k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
2 files · 18.3 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
Apache-2.0the author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Apply behavioral mimicry — making an interface element behave like a familiar physical object so the user''s physical-world intuitions transfer to the digital interaction. Use when designing gestures, animations, transitions, drag-and-drop, scroll behaviors, or any interaction where physical-world analogies could clarify the experience. Behavioral mimicry is more durable than visual skeuomorphism — physics-mimicking behaviors age well — but it requires deliberate calibration: too much physical fidelity slows the interaction down without communicating anything new.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

design
Filed under

Design & Media

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md11.2 kB · preview
--- name: mimicry-behavioral ---
6# Mimicry — behavioral
7
8Behavioral mimicry is making an interface element act like its physical analog. The springy bounce when a list reaches its end (Apple's "rubber band" scrolling). The page-turn animation in an e-reader. The drag gesture that follows your finger with apparent weight. The sliding panel that comes in from the right side of the screen. Each borrows physical-world physics or motion to make the digital interaction feel grounded.
9
10Behavioral mimicry is often subtler than surface mimicry but more durable. The page-turn animation doesn't depend on the e-reader looking like a book; it just needs to feel like turning. The rubber-band scroll doesn't need a leather binding to work; the physical metaphor (an elastic that resists past its limit) carries on its own.
11
12## Why behavioral mimicry matters
13
14The user's physical intuitions are a vast, free knowledge resource. They know that when you push something it moves; when you pull, it comes toward you; when you let go, gravity affects it; when something is heavy, it accelerates slowly; when it's light, it's easy to flick away. An interface that exploits these intuitions feels natural without requiring instruction.
15
16A list that scrolls smoothly with momentum (continues moving briefly after the finger lifts, gradually slowing as if to friction) is doing physical-mimicry work: it behaves like a sheet of paper would if you flicked it. Users have no trouble understanding the behavior because they've been flicking paper for years.
17
18Without the physics, the same scroll would feel mechanical and computer-like. With the physics, it feels organic. The work the user's brain does to predict the next position of the list is almost zero.
19
20## Where behavioral mimicry is most useful
21
22Behavioral mimicry pays off most clearly in:
23
24**Gesture design.** Gestures are inherently invisible (you can't see what gestures are available the way you can see buttons), so users rely heavily on physical analogies to predict what gestures will do. Pinch-to-zoom mimics stretching fabric; swipe-to-dismiss mimics flicking a card aside; drag-to-rearrange mimics moving objects on a desk.
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md1,684 words
Files2
LicenceApache-2.0
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈150
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
4,425
on trigger
The instruction body and 1 supporting file, read only when the skill fires.
2.3%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 23% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

4.6k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

2 files, 18.3 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md11.2 kB
  • references/animation-timing.md7.1 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 2 files you can review in full before installing. The Apache-2.0 licence covers the templates and examples as well as the instructions.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Mimicry — behavioral · 4.6k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/mimicry-behavioral/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/mimicry-behavioral" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral ] || { mv .claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/mimicry-behavioral" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add hashgraph-online/mimicry-behavioral

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/mimicry-behavioral/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/mimicry-behavioral" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/mimicry-behavioral" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/mimicry-behavioral/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Versionnot versioned
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencehashgraph-online/mimicry-behavioral

Versions

Its author publishes no version number, so there is nothing here to pin to: what you install is the folder as it stands today. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

Pinning

Nothing to pin to: this skill carries no version number of its own. What you install is what the folder holds on the day you install it.

Reviews

—no reviews yet

Nobody has reviewed this skill yet. The rating is the mean of the reviews written here, so there is none until somebody writes the first.

Sign in to review it

A review is tied to an account so it can be answered, edited and taken down by the person who wrote it.

Sign in
Who can post

Anybody with an account, one review each. It carries the version that was current when you wrote it, and the publisher may reply once.

Publisher
Servers1
Claim this skill