Illustrations

This skill is an action router — pick the step that matches the user's intent and execute only that step. Do not run other steps; do not parallelize.

Step 1 inspects the request and the talk-directory state to decide the mode (Strategy / Generation / Thumbnail) and which subsequent step is the entry point. The "Multi-mode chaining" section at the end of Step 1 is the one explicit exception, and only triggers when a single invocation requests multiple modes.

Owns every AI-generated image the toolkit produces: deck illustrations, build chains, and thumbnails. Reads the vault for visual history, the presentation-outline.md for slide-level prompts, and the speaker-profile.json for visual_style_history and publishing_process.thumbnail config.

The auto-loaded steering rules are the constitution: illustration-rules (edit vs regenerate, build chains, iteration hygiene), title-overlay-rules (safe-zone composition), and thumbnail-generation-rules (Phase 7 specifics). Do not restate them here — apply them.

Key Files & References

Step 1 — Route by Mode

Determine which of three modes applies and execute only the matching steps:

• Strategy — outline has no STYLE ANCHOR yet, or the author wants to revise it. Run Step 2 (freshness), then Step 3 (style), then stop unless generation was also requested.
• Generation — outline has a STYLE ANCHOR and per-slide prompts. Run Step 2 (freshness), Step 4 (illustrations), Step 5 (builds, if any slides have a - Builds: block), and Step 6 (apply to deck, if a .pptx exists).
• Thumbnail — talk has been delivered and a video URL is available. Skip to Step 7.

Multi-mode chaining

If — and only if — a single invocation requests multiple modes (e.g., "design the visual style, then generate everything"), run them in order Strategy → Generation → Thumbnail. Proceed immediately to the first applicable step; do not pause for confirmation between modes. A single-mode invocation runs exactly the one matching step's chain and stops.

Step 2 — Check Image-Model Freshness

Image-generation models ship faster than this skill updates. Before Strategy comparison (Step 3) or Generation (Step 4) touches images, verify the model landscape hasn't shifted since the script's COMPARE_MODELS list — or, for an existing outline, the baked **Model:** choice — was last set. A model picked "a few months back" may already be eclipsed by a newer flagship from the same or another vendor.

Use WebSearch to identify the current flagship image-generation models from the major vendors — at minimum Google (Gemini image, Imagen) and OpenAI (gpt-image-*); include any other vendor with a publicly accessible image-generation API. Web search is required because the knowledge cutoff trails the release cadence by months. "Flagship" means the vendor's currently-recommended top-tier image model, not every preview or experimental variant.

For Generation mode entering an existing outline, also surface the outline's Model and selection date — run git log -1 --format=%cI <outline-path> against the actual outline file (presentation-outline.md in the standard talk-dir layout, but the filename can vary per talk), or fall back to filesystem mtime if the talk is outside git.

If every flagship is already represented in COMPARE_MODELS (and, for Generation mode, the outline's Model is one of them), proceed silently to the next step.

Otherwise, surface the gap and propose action:

• Strategy mode: list the new flagships, propose updating COMPARE_MODELS in skills/illustrations/scripts/generate-illustrations.py, then proceed to Step 3 — the comparison will render the new entries side by side.
• Generation mode: propose re-running --compare against the updated list before the rest of the deck generates. The speaker may stay with the baked Model (skip the comparison) or pick a new one (update the outline header's **Model:** line, then proceed to Step 4).

The speaker decides — never silently swap the model.

generate-illustrations.py dispatches by model-name prefix and currently supports three vendor families: gemini-* / nano-banana-* (Google generateContent), imagen-* (Google :predict), and gpt-image-* (OpenAI /images/generations and /images/edits). Adding a model in any of those families is a COMPARE_MODELS constant edit. Adding a model from a vendor not in that list (e.g., a future Anthropic image API, Midjourney, etc.) requires extending model_family() and adding a new _call_<vendor> adapter — surface that as a follow-up script change before re-running --compare.

Proceed immediately to Step 3 or Step 4 per Step 1's routing.

Step 3 — Define Style Strategy

Collaborate with the author to produce the Illustration Style Anchor for the outline. Read the talk's concepts from presentation-spec.md, the speaker's visual_style_history from the profile, and rhetoric-style-summary.md Section 13 for cross-talk visual patterns. Propose 3–4 style options grounded in concept fit + vault context, recommend one, iterate on the anchor paragraph, then define format vocabulary (FULL / IMG+TXT / EXCEPTION + any talk-specific additions), model choice, and visual continuity devices.

Full protocol with the option-presentation template, format vocabulary defaults, and continuity-device options: skills/illustrations/references/strategy.md.

Write the approved STYLE ANCHOR block into the outline header. Proceed immediately to Step 4 if generation was also requested; otherwise finish here.

Step 4 — Generate Deck Illustrations

Batch-generate every missing slide illustration from the outline:

python3 skills/illustrations/scripts/generate-illustrations.py \
  presentation-outline.md remaining

Review with the author. For targeted corrections use --fix (preserves the near-good output); for additions use full regeneration; for removals use --edit. The edit-vs-regenerate asymmetry rule (illustration-rules §1) governs which to pick. Save iteration versions (v2, v3) instead of overwriting — see illustration-rules Iteration Hygiene.

Operational detail (compare modes, prompt patterns, retry ladder): skills/illustrations/references/generation.md.

Proceed immediately to Step 5.

Step 5 — Generate Builds

If any slides in the outline have a - Builds: block, generate the backwards-chained build images. Each step's input is the previous step's output — never regenerate independently from prompts.

python3 skills/illustrations/scripts/generate-illustrations.py \
  presentation-outline.md --build all

Output: illustrations/builds/slide-NN-build-MM.<ext> where <ext> is the MIME-derived extension for each step (.jpg / .png / .webp depending on the model and source image). Build-00 is the empty frame; build-N is the full image. Detail and the per-step contract: skills/illustrations/references/builds.md.

If no slides specify builds, proceed silently to Step 6.

Step 6 — Apply Illustrations to Deck

Insert generated illustrations and build sequences into the .pptx. Build slides replace their parent slide rather than duplicating after it; speaker notes go on the final build step only.

The script contract is DECK ILLUSTRATIONS_DIR OUTLINE_MD (positional, in that order), with optional --out, --image-ext, --scrim-color, --scrim-alpha. It writes a new <stem>-with-titles.pptx next to the input deck unless --out is given.

python3 skills/illustrations/scripts/apply-illustrations-to-deck.py \
  deck.pptx illustrations/ presentation-outline.md

If no .pptx exists yet (Phase 5 hasn't run), finish here — presentation-creator Phase 5 will call back into this skill at Step 6 once the deck is built.

Step 7 — Generate Thumbnail

Run the thumbnail composition for a delivered talk. Surface 3–5 candidate slides ranked by visual impact, let the speaker pick, then compose:

python3 skills/illustrations/scripts/generate-thumbnail.py \
  --slide-image illustrations/slide-NN.png \
  --speaker-photo "$SPEAKER_PHOTO" \
  --title "HOOK TITLE" \
  --aesthetic <photo|comic_book>

Aesthetic precedence (thumbnail-generation-rules §7): explicit speaker preference → default_illustration_style → confirmed intents → photo. For illustrated decks, also pass --portrait-style "<anchor>" so the portrait is pre-stylized to match the deck.

Iteration is conversational — change one thing at a time (style variant, expression, colors, title text, slide). Detail: skills/illustrations/references/thumbnails.md.

Finish here.