slide-deck-skill

An agent skill package for creating, editing, and publishing professional slide decks on deck.4hum.ai.

The agent generates slide JSON directly from the slide-scene-graph v0.4.0 schema, validates it locally, then saves it through the deck.4hum.ai REST API via bundled Python scripts. No backend LLM call is needed for content — the agent writes the deck JSON itself.

What it does

• Designs a custom theme matched to the topic's tone and audience (not just picks from a list — uses two structural reference themes as a starting point)
• Generates charts, tables, diagrams (Mermaid), images, and rich text objects
• Validates the deck JSON locally before any network call
• Previews rendered slides as screenshots so the agent can evaluate and iterate
• Saves to deck.4hum.ai and returns the edit URL
• Updates existing decks via update_deck.py
• Generates custom hosted images via the API

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• Network access to the deck.4hum.ai API
• A deck.4hum.ai account (run python scripts/auth.py once to authenticate)

Installation

The easiest way — open a session with your agent and ask it to install the skill globally:

"Clone https://github.com/4hum-ai/slide-deck-skill and install it globally so the skill is available in all future sessions."

The agent knows where its own global skills directory is and will handle the rest. Start a new session afterward to activate it.

Manual install (Claude Code)

If you prefer to do it yourself:

# Global — available in all Claude Code sessions:
git clone https://github.com/4hum-ai/slide-deck-skill ~/.claude/skills/slide-deck-skill

# Project-local — available only in this project:
git clone https://github.com/4hum-ai/slide-deck-skill .claude/skills/slide-deck-skill

Start a new session — Claude Code auto-discovers skills from those locations. To update: cd ~/.claude/skills/slide-deck-skill && git pull

Updating the skill

Update the skill itself (get the latest version)

# If installed via git clone:
cd ~/.claude/skills/slide-deck-skill   # or wherever you installed it
git pull origin main

Check CHANGELOG.md for what changed between versions.

If a new version has schema or script changes, re-authenticate and re-validate any decks you intend to update:

python scripts/auth.py
python scripts/deck_validator.py < my-deck.json

Update an existing deck's content

To push new JSON to a deck you already created:

# By deck ID (printed when you first saved the deck):
python scripts/update_deck.py "<deck-id>" < updated-deck.json

# Or pipe from a generator script:
python my_generator.py | python scripts/update_deck.py "<deck-id>"

The update script validates the JSON before sending, same as save. The deck URL does not change — reload https://deck.4hum.ai/app/decks/<id>/edit to see the new content.

Bump the skill version (maintainers)

When you make changes to the skill itself (scripts, references, SKILL.md), update metadata.version in SKILL.md and add an entry to CHANGELOG.md before tagging a release.

Quick start

Once installed, just ask your agent:

"Create a slide deck on the benefits of microservices architecture."

The agent will design a custom theme, plan the slides, generate deck JSON, validate it, preview the result, and return a link.

Structure

slide-deck-skill/
├── SKILL.md                          # Agent instructions (loaded at activation)
├── scripts/
│   ├── auth.py                       # Credential management
│   ├── block_builder.py              # Block builders: card, portrait_card, kpi_card, grid, chart, table…
│   ├── deck_patterns.py              # Backwards-compat re-export shim (deck_patterns → block_builder)
│   ├── deck_validator.py             # Local preflight validator (--strict quality pass)
│   ├── preview_deck.py               # Structural summary + WCAG contrast check (--theme-check)
│   ├── patch_slide.py                # Targeted single-slide edit / insert / delete
│   ├── generate_image.py             # Image generation
│   ├── save_deck.py                  # Create deck via API
│   └── update_deck.py                # Update existing deck
├── references/
│   ├── scene-graph.md                # Full deckJson schema reference
│   ├── theme-presets.md              # Theme JSON objects, color tokens, font mood table
│   ├── commands.md                   # Script commands, env vars, image sizing guide
│   └── image-prompts.md              # Proven prompt templates (portrait, hero, icon, dataviz)
└── examples/
    └── agent_skills_marketplace.py   # Complete five-slide example

License

MIT — see LICENSE.