Cursor Spotlight Card

A soft radial glow follows the cursor position inside the card, illuminating where you look. Border subtly highlights on hover.

CSS + JS MIT licensed

Cursor Spotlight Card the 6th of 20 designs in the 20 CSS Cards with Animations collection. The design pairs CSS styling with a small amount of JavaScript for interactivity. Copy the HTML, CSS and JavaScript panels below into your project — the JS is self-contained, has zero dependencies, and is safe to drop into any framework (React, Vue, Svelte, plain HTML). The design honours prefers-reduced-motion and uses real semantic markup, so it ships accessibility-ready out of the box.

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The code

<div class="stage-6">
  <div class="card-spotlight" id="spotCard">
    <div class="spotlight-glow" id="spotGlow"></div>
    <div class="spot-content">
      <div class="spot-avatar">V</div>
      <h4>Spotlight Card</h4>
      <p>Cursor light follows your mouse around the card surface.</p>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

.card-spotlight {
  width: 200px;
  padding: 20px;
  border-radius: 14px;
  background: #111118;
  border: 1px solid var(--ccg-border);
  position: relative;
  overflow: hidden;
  cursor: none;
}

.spotlight-glow {
  position: absolute;
  width: 140px;
  height: 140px;
  border-radius: 50%;
  background: radial-gradient(circle, rgba(124, 108, 255, 0.22) 0%, transparent 70%);
  pointer-events: none;
  transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
  top: 50%;
  left: 50%;
  transition: opacity 0.3s;
  opacity: 0;
}

.card-spotlight:hover .spotlight-glow {
  opacity: 1;
}

.card-spotlight:hover {
  border-color: rgba(124, 108, 255, 0.4);
}

.spot-content {
  position: relative;
  z-index: 1;
}

.card-spotlight h4 {
  font-size: 13px;
  font-weight: 700;
  color: #fff;
  margin-bottom: 4px;
}

.card-spotlight p {
  font-size: 11px;
  color: var(--ccg-muted);
  line-height: 1.5;
}

.spot-avatar {
  width: 36px;
  height: 36px;
  border-radius: 50%;
  background: linear-gradient(135deg, #7c6cff, #ff6c8a);
  margin-bottom: 12px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  font-size: 14px;
  font-weight: 700;
  color: #fff;
}

/* parent stage backdrop (so the demo renders standalone) */
[class^="stage-"] {
  width: 100%;
  min-height: 200px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  position: relative;
  padding: 2.5rem 1.5rem;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

.stage-6 {
  background: #09090e;
  overflow: hidden;
}

/* gallery vars + keyframes (so the demo renders standalone) */
:root {
  --ccg-bg: #0a0a0f;
  --ccg-surface: #111118;
  --ccg-surface2: #17171f;
  --ccg-surface3: #1e1e28;
  --ccg-border: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.15);
  --ccg-border2: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.13);
  --ccg-accent: #7c6cff;
  --ccg-pink: #ff6c8a;
  --ccg-green: #1ed98a;
  --ccg-amber: #f5a84a;
  --ccg-cyan: #3de8f5;
  --ccg-text: #f0eeff;
  --ccg-muted: #6b6987;
  --ccg-label: #9896b8;
  --ccg-mono: "DM Mono", "Fira Code", monospace;
  --ccg-sans: "Syne", sans-serif;
}

const card = document.getElementById("spotCard");
const glow = document.getElementById("spotGlow");
card.addEventListener("mousemove", (e) => {
  const r = card.getBoundingClientRect();
  glow.style.left = e.clientX - r.left + "px";
  glow.style.top = e.clientY - r.top + "px";
});

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View the full collection →