Plan a YouTube Thumbnail for a Delivered Talk

Problem/Feature Description

A speaker delivered "Robocoders: Judgment Day" at DevNexus 2026 two weeks ago. The recording is now on YouTube at https://youtube.com/watch?v=abc123. The speaker wants a YouTube thumbnail that will maximize click-through rate.

The outline has an illustration strategy (retro sci-fi propaganda poster aesthetic) with several full-bleed illustration slides, plus text slides, a bio slide, a shownotes slide, and bullet-heavy slides. The speaker's profile has thumbnail preferences configured.

Using the presentation-creator skill, plan the complete thumbnail generation workflow: select candidate slides, propose a title, and document the exact command to generate the thumbnail.

Output Specification

Produce the following files:

1. thumbnail-plan.md — Complete thumbnail workflow plan including:
   • List of 3-5 candidate slides ranked by visual impact, with reasoning for each
   • Which slides were excluded and why
   • 2-3 proposed title text options (short hooks, not the full talk title)
   • The exact generate-thumbnail.py command that would be run (with all arguments)
   • Where the speaker photo comes from
   • How face preservation is handled in the generation process
2. slide-candidates.md — Formatted list of candidate slides with:
   • Slide number and description
   • Why this slide is a good/bad candidate
   • Source for the slide image (illustration file, extraction, etc.)

Input Files

Download vault fixtures from the project repository:

BASE="https://github.com/jbaruch/speaker-toolkit/raw/main/eval-resources/scenario-24"
mkdir -p inputs/vault inputs/talk
curl -L -o inputs/vault/speaker-profile.json "$BASE/speaker-profile.json"
curl -L -o inputs/vault/secrets.json "$BASE/secrets.json"
curl -L -o inputs/vault/tracking-database.json "$BASE/tracking-database.json"
curl -L -o inputs/talk/presentation-spec.md "$BASE/presentation-spec.md"
curl -L -o inputs/talk/presentation-outline.md "$BASE/presentation-outline.md"

Key Parameters

• YouTube URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=abc123
• Talk title: "Robocoders: Judgment Day"
• Illustration style: Retro sci-fi propaganda poster
• Illustration slides: 1, 10, 25 (full-bleed illustrations)
• Bio slide: 4 (should be avoided)
• Shownotes slide: 3 (should be avoided)
• Bullet-heavy slide: 18 (should be avoided)
• Profile thumbnail preferences: style=overlay, title_position=bottom, brand_colors=#5B2C6F,#C0392B
• Speaker photo path: configured in profile