AddThisFeature

Route Change Progress

Show that a page change is underway when navigation isn't instant.

simple Navigation

What it adds

A single global indicator at the top of the app that appears while a client-side navigation is in flight.

What your agent is told to do

5
  1. 1

    Add one indicator, owned globally, tied to the app's navigation lifecycle rather than to any individual view.

  2. 2

    Delay its appearance by roughly 200ms. Most navigations finish before that, and an indicator that flashes on every click reads as jank.

  3. 3

    Complete or cancel it on every terminal outcome — success, redirect, error, and user-cancelled back navigation.

  4. 4

    Do not use this to cover the arrival of data inside a view. Per-view content placeholders are owned by Skeleton Loading; extend that rather than building a second one. The two must never be visible at the same time — once the route has committed, this indicator is finished.

  5. 5

    Announce only transitions that run long. A polite live-region message after a couple of seconds is enough; do not narrate every route change.

Edge cases it handles

6
  • A navigation that redirects must finish the indicator on the final destination, not the intermediate one.
  • A failed navigation must clear the indicator and surface the error, never leave a bar stuck at 90%.
  • Rapid successive navigations must reuse one indicator, not stack several.
  • Browser back and forward are navigations too, and are often instant from cache — the delay threshold matters most here.
  • The bar must sit above sticky headers and modals without covering a focused control.
  • Respect prefers-reduced-motion: keep the state change, drop the animated crawl.

Definition of done

8
  • Exactly one navigation indicator exists app-wide.
  • Navigations faster than the delay threshold show nothing.
  • Redirects, errors, and cancellations all clear the indicator.
  • The indicator and any per-view skeleton are never on screen together.
  • Long transitions are announced once to screen readers, short ones silently.
  • The indicator never obscures content or a focused element.
  • The feature matches the existing design system.
  • No existing functionality is broken.

Related features

How it works

  1. 1

    Copy the link

    Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.

  2. 2

    Give it to your AI

    Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.

  3. 3

    It inspects, then implements

    Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.

Works with your stack

These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.

Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.