Generate a Conference Deck from a Finalized Outline

Background

Jordan Chen is a conference speaker who uses a custom PowerPoint template for all their talks. Jordan has finalized the outline for an upcoming talk and needs a Python script to programmatically build the .pptx deck from that outline.

The script will be part of Jordan's repeatable workflow: every time an outline is ready, they run a script to generate the initial deck from the template, then iterate from there. Jordan's existing setup uses python-pptx for any structural operations and the speaker profile specifies how notes, footers, and backgrounds should be handled.

Jordan's template is at ./template.pptx and the output should go to ./output/cloud-native-testing.pptx.

Output Specification

Write a Python script named generate_deck.py that takes Jordan's PowerPoint template and the outline below and produces a finished .pptx deck at ./output/cloud-native-testing.pptx. The script should use python-pptx to build the deck programmatically.

The finished deck should be a complete, presentation-ready file with all slides from the outline, proper visual formatting, and speaker guidance preserved. Use the speaker profile below for all design decisions.

Also document any required dependencies in a requirements comment at the top of the script.

The speaker profile specifying Jordan's design rules and infrastructure is provided below.

Input Files

The following files are provided as inputs. Extract them before beginning.

=============== FILE: inputs/speaker-profile.json =============== { "schema_version": 1, "speaker": { "name": "Jordan Chen", "handle": "@jchen", "shownotes_url_pattern": "speaking.jordanchen.dev/{slug}" }, "infrastructure": { "template_pptx_path": "./template.pptx", "template_layouts": [ {"index": 0, "name": "TITLE_ONLY", "placeholders": ["TITLE"], "use_for": "title slide, section dividers"}, {"index": 1, "name": "TITLE_AND_BODY", "placeholders": ["TITLE", "BODY"], "use_for": "content slides"}, {"index": 2, "name": "BLANK", "placeholders": [], "use_for": "full-bleed images, memes"}, {"index": 3, "name": "TWO_COLUMN", "placeholders": ["TITLE", "BODY_LEFT", "BODY_RIGHT"], "use_for": "comparisons"} ] }, "design_rules": { "background_color_strategy": "dark_saturated_per_section", "section_colors": { "opening": [30, 30, 60], "problem": [80, 20, 20], "solution": [20, 60, 30], "closing": [30, 30, 60] }, "white_black_reserved_for": "full-bleed image slides only", "footer": { "pattern": "@jchen | #{conference_hashtag} | speaking.jordanchen.dev/{slug}", "position_left_inches": 0.5, "position_bottom_inches": 0.15, "width_inches": 8.5, "height_inches": 0.25, "font": "Arial", "font_size": 9, "color": [255, 255, 255] }, "slide_numbers": "never" } }

=============== FILE: inputs/outline.md ===============

Cloud-Native Testing: Stop Mocking Everything

Spec: practitioner | 30 min | CloudNativeCon EU 2025 | senior engineers Slide budget: 45 slides

Opening Sequence [3 min, slides 1-4]

Slide 1: Title Slide

• Layout: TITLE_ONLY
• Visual: "Cloud-Native Testing: Stop Mocking Everything"
• Speaker: [no notes — title slide]

Slide 2: Opening Provocation

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Your test suite is a lie detector. And it's broken."
• Speaker: "Raise your hand if your CI passes and your prod still breaks. Yeah. That's most of us. Today we fix that."

Slide 3: Brief Bio

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Jordan Chen", Body: "Platform engineer @ Acme Corp. I break prod so you don't have to."
• Speaker: "Quick bio — I'll keep it short."

Slide 4: Shownotes URL

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "All the links", Body: "speaking.jordanchen.dev/cloud-native-testing" + QR code placeholder
• Speaker: "Everything is at this URL. Slides, links, code samples."

Act 1: The Problem With Mocks [8 min, slides 5-14]

Slide 5: What We Do

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "The standard approach" Body: → Mock your dependencies\n→ Unit test everything in isolation\n→ 90% coverage\n→ Ship with confidence
• Speaker: "Here's the playbook most teams follow. Looks solid, right?"

Slide 6: What Actually Happens

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Reality" Body: → Mocks diverge from the real service\n→ Tests pass, integration fails\n→ You find out in prod
• Speaker: "Here's the thing nobody tells you: your mock is a snapshot of what you thought the API did in 2022."

[CUT LINE: drop slides 7-9 for 20-min version]

Slide 7: The Drift Problem

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Mock drift" Body: Study shows 62% of mocks in enterprise projects are out of sync with the actual service within 6 months.
• Speaker: "This number is from a 2024 study — reference in shownotes. Sixty-two percent. That's not a corner case."

Slide 8: War Story

• Layout: TITLE_ONLY
• Visual: "The incident you don't want to have"
• Speaker: "Let me tell you about a payments service at a company I won't name. Their test coverage was 94%. Their prod incident rate was... also high."

Act 2: Contract Testing [10 min, slides 15-24]

Slide 15: The Alternative

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Consumer-driven contract testing" Body: → Consumer defines what it needs\n→ Provider verifies it can deliver\n→ Contracts live in source control
• Speaker: "Instead of mocking what you think an API does, you write down what you need and verify it against the real thing."

Closing Sequence [3 min, slides 42-45]

Slide 42: Summary

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Three things to take home" Body: → Replace mocks with contract tests at integration boundaries\n→ Use Testcontainers for infrastructure dependencies\n→ Keep unit tests for pure logic only
• Speaker: "Three things. If you do only one, do the first one."

Slide 43: Call to Action

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "This week: one contract test" Body: Pick your most brittle mock. Replace it. Measure the flakiness delta.
• Speaker: "Don't boil the ocean. One mock. This week."

Slide 44: Shownotes + QR

• Layout: TITLE_AND_BODY
• Visual: Title: "Resources", Body: "speaking.jordanchen.dev/cloud-native-testing"
• Speaker: "Everything is here. The Pact tutorial, the Testcontainers guide, and the incident post-mortem I referenced."

Slide 45: Thanks

• Layout: TITLE_ONLY
• Visual: "Thank you — @jchen"
• Speaker: [no notes]