Motion Path API for Position Animation in Figma Motion

Hey hey ​@LittleJohnny_Zhou 👋 Thanks for the great question and feedback. I’d like to share this with the Motion team. I had a few questions to give more context:

• When you inspect the track, are you reading the combined TRANSLATION_XY or the split TRANSLATION_X / TRANSLATION_Y? And are you seeing the anchor positions come through fine, with only the curve data missing — or are the positions themselves not what you expect? 
• Have you tried any of the export paths yet, rather than the Plugin API — the Motion tab in Dev Mode under Code or the MCP server's get_motion_context? If so, which ones, and did the curve survive in any of them?

Thanks! — Jaycee

Hi ​@Jaycee Lewis , thanks for the follow-up — I did a bit more testing.
In the Plugin API, I’ve mainly been inspecting the combined TRANSLATION_XY track. The anchor / keyframe positions themselves do come through correctly, and the timing / easing data is also readable. The missing part seems to be the spatial trajectory data between those keyframes — specifically the editable motion-path geometry that is visible in the Motion UI.
I also checked another export path: the Motion code from Dev Mode. There, the position animation is exposed as split motionTranslationX and motionTranslationY keyframes, and again I can see the keyframe times, position values, and easing data. But I still could not find any explicit path handle / trajectory curve data there either.
So from what I can tell so far:
The keyframe positions are available
The easing / timing data is available
The editable motion-path geometry itself does not appear to be exposed in either the Plugin API or the Dev Mode Motion code output
I haven’t yet verified get_motion_context, but based on the two paths above, the missing piece seems specifically to be the spatial path data rather than the keyframe positions.
If helpful, I can also provide a minimal test case showing a position animation whose visible path in the Motion UI cannot be reconstructed from the currently exposed data.

Hey, ​@LittleJohnny_Zhou 👋 This is all fantastic feedback. For the repro file, can you invite support-share@figma.com as a viewer, please? Add it won't affect your billing or take a seat. You can DM me the file link and I’ll add it to my internal post. 

One last question (maybe 😉) — when you pulled the Motion code from Dev Mode, which format were you on — CSS, React, or JSON? I want to reproduce on exactly the same path you did before I write this up, so any detail on what you were seeing in that output would help. 

Thanks! — Jaycee

Interesting finding. It looks like the keyframe and easing data are available, but the actual motion path geometry is still missing. Hopefully Figma exposes that part of the API in the future.

I added you as another signal ​@matthewscott 🙌 Hey ​@LittleJohnny_Zhou the team asked if you were able to share the file to the support address I added above. Thanks to both of you! — Jaycee

I have sent a Motion test file to support-share@figma.com via email.

I exported JSON data in Dev mode.

Also, I tried sending you a private message but for some reason it says "This value is too long. It should have 10000 characters or less."

I'm not sure why the email didn't seem to be delivered correctly. Here's the link to the test file:

https://www.figma.com/design/tPAwsK2Z0bIhPYfaZdcYsv/MotionTest?node-id=0-1&t=GIYLGeEAdkjsKj3S-1

Also, as a more intuitive reference, the problem I'm discussing is precisely the curve animation discussed in this topic：
 

This curve animation's trajectory cannot be obtained in the plugin API; only keyframe coordinates can be obtained. When I try to convert the Figma Motion animation to SVG animation, in SVG, only linear motion can occur between keyframes.

Hi ​@LittleJohnny_Zhou, Celyn here stepping in for ​@Jaycee Lewis.

Thanks for sharing the test file and the additional context! I’ve passed these details along to the team.

Just to clarify, rather than emailing the file to support-share@figma.com, could you please share the Figma file directly with that address and grant Can View access?

To do this:

1. Open the affected Figma file and click Share in the top-right corner.
2. Enter support-share@figma.com.
3. Set the permission to Can view.
4. Click Invite.

Once that’s done, our team will be able to access the file and take a closer look. Thanks again for your help!

Hi ​@Celyn_L , I have sent multiple invitations to support-share@figma.com, but it seems they still haven't been accepted.

Hey ​@LittleJohnny_Zhou 👋 I’ll reach out directly to the team that asked for the file access and let them know you sent it. Talk soon! — Jaycee