An animated ring of glowing spikes for any Compose Multiplatform composable.

GLOW	HOLO	BLUR
Circle	Rounded rectangle	Rectangle

Nimbus draws a ring of animated spikes around a composable — a slow, breathing halo that grows out of the shape's own outline. Spikes fade in and out at zero height, drift or rotate, and pulse in size, so the ring never looks mechanical.

It renders outside the composable's bounds and changes neither its size nor the layout around it, so it can be attached to a button that already exists without touching anything else.

A backend is picked automatically and the result looks the same on all of them:

The shader body is shared verbatim across all three dialects, so the backends cannot drift apart. While the effect is off the node is not redrawn at all, and while the app is backgrounded the frame loop suspends — a disabled Nimbus costs nothing.

Nimbus is on Maven Central, so no extra repository is needed.

kotlin {
    sourceSets {
        commonMain.dependencies {
            implementation("io.github.onthecrow:nimbus:0.1.1")
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    implementation("io.github.onthecrow:nimbus:0.1.1")
}

[versions]
nimbus = "0.1.1"

[libraries]
nimbus = { module = "io.github.onthecrow:nimbus", version.ref = "nimbus" }

The badge above always shows the latest released version.

One modifier, applied to a composable you already have:

val shape = CircleShape
var active by remember { mutableStateOf(false) }

Button(
    onClick = { active = !active },
    shape = shape,
    modifier = Modifier.nimbus(shape = shape, active = active),
) {
    Text("Connect")
}

Two things are worth knowing straight away:

• Pass the composable's own shape. The spikes are built on that outline; a mismatch makes them grow from the wrong edge.
• Nothing above it may clip. The effect deliberately draws past its own bounds, so a Modifier.clip(), a snug Card, or a LazyColumn item boundary will cut it off. Leave room around the composable — roughly maxPeakHeight × min(width, height) / 2 + collar on every side.

Sizes are fractions of the reference size — min(width, height) / 2, the radius of the largest circle fitting inside the composable. On a 120.dp circle that is 60.dp.

Depth comes from stacking rings that turn at different speeds and directions:

Modifier.nimbus(
    shape = shape,
    active = active,
    effect = NimbusEffect.GLOW,
    layers = listOf(
        NimbusLayer(
            color = Color(0xFF4DD0E1),
            minSpikesCount = 5,
            maxSpikesCount = 9,
            maxPeakHeight = 0.12f,
            alpha = 0.80f,
            rotationSpeed = 0.20f,
        ),
        NimbusLayer(
            color = Color(0xFF7C4DFF),
            minSpikesCount = 4,
            maxSpikesCount = 7,
            maxPeakHeight = 0.20f,
            alpha = 0.75f,
            rotationSpeed = -0.15f,
        ),
    ),
)

The sample is a tuning bench rather than a demo: every parameter of the public API is wired to a control, so you can dial the effect in on a real device instead of guessing values in code.

• The button sits at the top and updates live as you change anything.
• The Main tab holds shape, effect, collar, easings, activation and colours.
• One tab per layer, with + to add a layer and × to remove one, so you can build up a multi-ring look and watch it develop.
• Settings survive a restart, and Reset to defaults brings back the tuned baseline.

The button in the top-right corner generates a NimbusButton.kt with your current settings baked in — a complete, compilable composable, not a config dump — and opens the system share sheet so you can send it to yourself. Drop it into a project, add the dependency, and call NimbusButton().

# Android
./gradlew :androidApp:installDebug

# Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux)
./gradlew :desktopApp:run

For iOS, open iosApp/ in Xcode and run from there.

The desktop build is the quickest way to see the Skia backend: Compose renders through Skia on Desktop, iOS and Web alike, so :desktopApp:run exercises the same shader path as iOS without needing a device or Xcode.

Issues and pull requests are welcome. If you are changing how the effect looks, please say which backend you tested on — the Android GL fallbacks below API 33 are easy to break without noticing, since most devices never take that path.

Questions or ideas: @onthecrow on Telegram.

Copyright 2026 Dmitry Voronov

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.