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feat(ui): stacked dialog motion - #9432

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feat(ui): stacked dialog motion#9432
maxyinger wants to merge 8 commits into
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max/dialog-stack-motion

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@maxyinger

@maxyinger maxyinger commented Aug 13, 2026

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https://swingset-git-max-dialog-stack-motion.clerkstage.dev/components/dialog -> Nested Dialogs

Description

  • Splits stacked from nested
  • nested: a dialog over a panel or card dialog, keeps its own scrim (unchanged)
  • stacked: successive prompts — the confirmation over the form it confirms (no scrim)
nested stacked nested + stacked
Screenshot 2026-08-13 at 4 42 11 PM Screenshot 2026-08-13 at 4 41 11 PM Screenshot 2026-08-13 at 4 42 20 PM
  • Mobile still respects sheet behavior for prompt dialog stacks
    • becomes bottom aligned over center
Screenshot 2026-08-13 at 4 51 02 PM

Motion

Desktop Mobile
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9d4700cf-4766-4974-ae23-91df413d9146 https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bfe12c13-a266-4172-ba88-8e3167e261ad

Checklist

  • pnpm test runs as expected.
  • pnpm build runs as expected.
  • (If applicable) JSDoc comments have been added or updated for any package exports
  • (If applicable) Documentation has been updated

Type of change

  • 🐛 Bug fix
  • 🌟 New feature
  • 🔨 Breaking change
  • 📖 Refactoring / dependency upgrade / documentation
  • other:

@changeset-bot

changeset-bot Bot commented Aug 13, 2026

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🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 64b4053

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 0 packages

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The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

Project Deployment Actions Updated (UTC)
clerk-js-sandbox Ready Ready Preview Aug 14, 2026 3:03pm
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@github-actions github-actions Bot added the ui label Aug 13, 2026
maxyinger added a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 13, 2026
Empty the changeset (Mosaic has no consumer-visible surface), match the
`[clerk] ` prefix the package's other dev warnings use, and give the
stack veil the phone band's `slow` duration so it stays in step with the
recede it accompanies.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
@maxyinger
maxyinger force-pushed the max/dialog-stack-motion branch from bbd4a79 to c4bcb9d Compare August 13, 2026 19:58
@github-actions

github-actions Bot commented Aug 13, 2026

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API Changes Report

Generated by Break Check on 2026-08-14T15:08:30.795Z

Summary

Metric Count
Packages analyzed 19
Packages with changes 0
🔴 Breaking changes 0
🟡 Non-breaking changes 0
🟢 Additions 0

No API Changes Detected

All packages have stable APIs with no detected changes.


Report generated by Break Check

Last ran on 64b4053.

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commit: 64b4053

maxyinger added a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 13, 2026
Empty the changeset (Mosaic has no consumer-visible surface), match the
`[clerk] ` prefix the package's other dev warnings use, and give the
stack veil the phone band's `slow` duration so it stays in step with the
recede it accompanies.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
@maxyinger
maxyinger force-pushed the max/dialog-stack-motion branch from c4bcb9d to 0f73c56 Compare August 13, 2026 22:24
@maxyinger
maxyinger force-pushed the max/dialog-stack-motion branch from 0f73c56 to 41a56fc Compare August 13, 2026 23:08
Comment on lines +233 to +253
/**
* Warns when a dialog opened inside another dialog is not a `prompt`.
*
* `panel` and `card` are root-level surfaces: they host what opens over them and are never the
* thing that opens. A `panel` inside a dialog renders at a size that assumes it owns the viewport,
* over a surface it was meant to replace.
*
* One rule stated on the child covers every case — panel-in-panel, card-in-panel — without having
* to enumerate which sizes may host what.
*/
function useNestedSizeWarning(isNestedInDialog: boolean, size: DialogSize) {
React.useEffect(() => {
if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' || !isNestedInDialog || size === 'prompt') {
return;
}
console.warn(
`[clerk] a Dialog opened inside another Dialog should be size="prompt", but this one is size="${size}". ` +
'Only prompts are meant to open over another dialog; the rest are root-level surfaces.',
);
}, [isNestedInDialog, size]);
}

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One backdrop for the whole stack. A stacked dialog paints none, and the
root-level dialog's scrim survives underneath it. The scrim it replaces was
solved so that two levels composited to an intended total, which held only
for the two-deep case: alpha over alpha compounds, so the three-deep stack
this exists for went from an intended 0.68 to 0.83.

Depth comes from the surface beneath receding instead — scale and a lift,
with the radius divided by the same factor so the corners render unchanged,
the correction `ENTER_SCALE` already documents. Only `prompt` recedes;
`panel` and `card` are root-level surfaces and leave the stacked prompt's
shadow to carry the separation. A dialog stacked inside another one warns in
development if it is any size but `prompt`, which covers panel-in-panel and
card-in-panel without enumerating what may host what.

The recede stays live on the phone band where the entrance scale is pinned
flat: those are different gestures, and a stacked sheet covers enough of what
is beneath it that dropping the recede would leave that level with no cue at
all.

Keyed on `data-stacked`, not `data-nested` — the latter reports any floating
ancestor, so a dialog opened from a menu item would have lost its only scrim.
Recede alone reads as smaller more than as further back. Veiling the
contents toward the surface's own background separates the layers on its
own — which is what `panel` and `card` get, since neither moves.

A veil rather than `opacity` on the popup: fading the popup fades the
surface with it, letting the scrim through, which reads as the dialog
dissolving rather than as depth.
A dialog over a `panel` or a `card` keeps the scrim it had — that is a new
surface over a page-like one, and its own scrim is what says so. Only
successive prompts drop it, where a second scrim would darken the page for
what is the same conversation one step further in.

Whether it is a stack turns on the size of the dialog BENEATH, which the
headless layer has no notion of, so the backdrop resolves it from the parent
size carried in context and applies the style rather than keying on
`data-stacked`. The veil moves to `sizes.prompt` for the same reason.

Reduced motion keeps the recede and drops only its duration. Removing it
outright left a stacked prompt sitting on an identical prompt with no scrim
between them, which reads as a rendering fault rather than as a preference
being honoured.

Dismissing a stack in one action now staggers the exits off
`data-stack-exiting`, so it unwinds rather than vanishing on a single frame.
The stagger was invisible, and mostly not because it was short. The veil and
the lift were keyed on `data-stack-base`, which releases the instant the
child closes — so the surface beneath un-dimmed and dropped forward WHILE
fading out, moving toward the viewer at the moment it should have been
receding away. Both now hold through `data-stack-exiting` too, and the lift
rides a custom property so the exit branch carries it without having to know
whether there was ever a stacked child.

The delay goes to a full `fast`. Half of it was 50ms against a 100ms exit —
about a frame and a half, which is nothing.
A prompt's exit runs 0.1s, which leaves no room to separate two of them, and
lengthening a dismissal to make the separation visible is the wrong trade —
the dismissal is the part that should feel immediate.

Takes the veil and lift back to `data-stack-base` alone. They briefly held
through the exit as well, to stop the surface beneath un-dimming as it
faded, but that too is below the threshold over 0.1s.
On a phone a prompt fades over the full length of its slide, which earns
itself against the page — the fade gives the travel somewhere to resolve
into. Over an opaque surface it does the opposite: for a quarter of a second
the dialog underneath shows through the one arriving, and two stacked sheets
read as one muddy surface. There is already a surface there, so the slide
can carry the arrival alone and the fade goes back to the desktop `fast`.

Keyed on being over any open dialog rather than on the narrower
prompt-on-prompt stack: what makes the long fade wrong is arriving over
something opaque, and a panel is as opaque as a prompt.
Makes the panel -> prompt -> prompt case reachable: typing into "add email
address" and then trying to close it stacks a confirmation instead. Every
close request routes through the controlled `onOpenChange`, so declining to
commit there covers Escape, the corner X and Cancel at once.

Hand-rolled, and meant to be replaced by the AlertDialog and close
confirmation work rather than kept.
Empty the changeset (Mosaic has no consumer-visible surface), match the
`[clerk] ` prefix the package's other dev warnings use, and give the
stack veil the phone band's `slow` duration so it stays in step with the
recede it accompanies.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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