How to prevent Lottie animation from auto-playing on first load in Flutter

[KiddoV]

I’m using Lottie.asset in Flutter with .lottie/.dotlottie files. I want the animation to not start automatically on first load.
Here’s my current code:

Lottie.asset(
  "lib/assets/lotties/moving-arrow-down.lottie",
  height: 50,
  animate: isMerging.value,
  repeat: isMerging.value,
  decoder: LottieCompositionExt.decodeDotLottie,
),

The problem is:

1. If I set animate: isMerging.value, then when isMerging is false, the animation stops immediately and doesn’t finish the current loop. I don’t like this “jumping stop” behavior.
2. If I leave animate alone (default true), then the animation auto-plays on first load, which I also don’t want.

So I’m looking for a way to:

1. Prevent auto-play on the first widget load.
2. Keep full loops intact when I pause or toggle isMerging.

Basically, I want controlled start/pause behavior without the animation being reset or cut mid-play.