Presentation Creator

Build presentations that match the speaker's documented rhetoric and style patterns. The rhetoric-knowledge-vault is this skill's constitution. Every presentation is a joint effort — the skill brings rhetoric knowledge, the author brings topic expertise.

This skill defines PROCESS. The vault provides CONTENT. All instruments, thresholds, voice patterns, and design rules come from the vault at runtime.

Before You Start: Load the Vault

If the vault root path is unknown, ask via AskUserQuestion.

Load from vault root: rhetoric-style-summary.md (constitution — all patterns), slide-design-spec.md (visual rules), speaker-profile.json (structured data). Then load local references: references/process.md, references/guardrails.md, references/patterns/_index.md.

Checks: Warn if profile.generated_date < summary."Last updated" (stale profile). Warn if schema_version > 1. If profile doesn't exist (<10 talks), run in summary-only mode — read instruments from summary prose, use default guardrail thresholds (1.5 slides/min, 45% Act 1 cap), ask for template/publishing interactively.

Workflow Overview

Do not skip phases. Do not write content before Phase 3. Phase 2 is joint, not autonomous.

Phase 0: Intake & Context Loading

1. Load vault documents (see above).
2. Capture what the user has shared — topic, conference, audience, time slot.
3. Read any provided CFP description, conference website, or existing talk to adapt.
4. Report what you know and what you still need.

Phase 1: Intent Distillation

Ask about what's missing; skip what's known. See references/process.md for the full question set. Produce the Presentation Spec:

PRESENTATION SPEC
=================
Title:             [working title]
Thesis:            [one sentence]
Audience:          [who]
Venue:             [conference, slot, format]
Mode:              [from profile presentation_modes — present options]
Commercial intent: [none / subtle / direct]
Must-include:      [list]
Must-avoid:        [list]
Co-presenter:      [none | name + handle + role split]
Profanity register:[from profile rhetoric_defaults]
Duration target:   [from profile rhetoric_defaults.default_duration_minutes]
Shownotes slug:    [from profile speaker.shownotes_url_pattern]

Gate: Author confirms or edits the spec.

Phase 2: Rhetorical Architecture

The instrument menu comes from the vault, not from a static file. Read the summary (sections 2-13) and profile instrument_catalog for options.

10 Decisions to make together:

Mode, Opening, Narrative, Humor, Audience Interaction, Closing, Slide Design, Persuasion, Template Patterns, Pattern Strategy. Each reads from the matching instrument_catalog entry + summary section. Decision #10 uses the 4-tier Pattern Strategy from references/patterns/_index.md + profile → pattern_profile (see references/process.md for the full tier logic).

For each: present options, recommend based on spec, let author choose. If co-presented, add role split and voice differentiation — see references/process.md.

Slide budget — read from profile → guardrail_sources.slide_budgets at runtime. If the profile is unavailable (summary-only mode), use these defaults:

Gate: Author approves the architecture.

Phase 3: Content Development

Write the talk as a section-by-section outline. See references/process.md for the full outline format, voice calibration, callback identification, and placeholder types.

Outline structure (abbreviated — full format in references/process.md):

# [Talk Title]
**Spec:** [mode] | [duration] | [venue]
**Slide budget:** [N slides]

## Opening Sequence [3 min, slides 1-5]
### Slide 1: Title Slide
- Visual: [description]
- Speaker: [no notes — visual only]
### Slide 2: [Opening hook]
- Visual: [description]
- Speaker: "[opening lines in the speaker's voice]"

## Act 1: [Title] [N min, slides X-Y]
...
## [CUT LINE: drop below here for short version]
...
## Closing Sequence [3 min, slides N-end]

Placeholders use typed, independent numbering: [AUTHOR 01], [DEMO 01], [DATA 01], [SCREENSHOT 01], [MEME 01]

Save to: {presentations-dir}/{conference}/{year}/{talk-slug}/presentation-outline.md

Phase 4: Revision & Guardrails

Run guardrail checks from references/guardrails.md with thresholds from the profile.

GUARDRAIL CHECK — {talk title}
================================================
[PASS/FAIL] Slide budget: {actual}/{max} for {duration}-min slot
[PASS/WARN] Act 1 ratio: {%} (limit: {max}% — 40% for 20-30min, 45% for 45min, 50% for 60+min)
[PASS/FAIL] Branding: footer elements for {conference}
[PASS/FAIL] Profanity: {register} applied, {N} on-slide
[PASS/FAIL] Data attribution: {N} slides checked, {M} missing sources
[PASS/FAIL] Time-sensitive: {count} items
[PASS/FAIL] Closing: summary={y/n} CTA={y/n} social={y/n}
[PASS/FAIL] Cut lines: {present/missing}
[INFO] Anti-patterns: {flags from profile recurring_issues}
[INFO] Pattern score projection: {estimated score based on architecture decisions}
[RECURRING/CONTEXTUAL] Presentation Patterns: {taxonomy-based antipattern flags}
================================================

Iterate on author feedback. Apply changes first, guardrail second. Flag but don't block intentionally overridden guardrails. See references/process.md for iteration protocol.

Phase 5: Slide Generation & Interactive Iteration

Build the .pptx deck from the finalized outline. See references/slide-generation.md for the full technical reference.

Setup:

from pptx import Presentation

# Strip demo slides from template, keep layouts only
tmpl = Presentation(profile["infrastructure"]["template_pptx_path"])
xml_slides = tmpl.slides._sldIdLst
for sldId in list(xml_slides):
    rId = sldId.get('{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships}id')
    tmpl.part.drop_rel(rId)
    xml_slides.remove(sldId)
tmpl.save(output_path)

Then open with MCP open_presentation and walk the outline: add_slide → populate_placeholder → manage_image for each slide. Inject speaker notes via python-pptx batch after MCP generation.

Key rules from profile:

• design_rules.background_color_strategy — how to pick background colors
• design_rules.footer — pattern, position, font, color adaptation
• design_rules.slide_numbers — typically "never"
• infrastructure.template_layouts[] — layout index + placeholder mapping

Phase 6: Publishing

Read publishing_process from speaker-profile.json. Each speaker's workflow differs.

If publishing_process is missing or empty, ask the author interactively.

Execute the steps from the profile:

1. Export — run export_method / export_script (see references/slide-generation.md)
2. Shownotes — if shownotes_publishing.enabled, follow the described method
3. QR Code — if qr_code.enabled, generate and insert per profile
4. Additional steps — execute each additional_steps[] entry
5. Go-live checklist — surface unobservable patterns from references/patterns/_index.md as a delivery preparation reminder (see references/process.md Step 6.5)

Gate: Author confirms published and ready to deliver.

Adapting Existing Talks

1. Check if the talk has been ingested by the vault. If not, process it first.
2. Read the original talk's analysis from {vault_root}/analyses/
3. Copy the previous deck as starting point — do NOT start from fresh template.
4. Start at Phase 1 with the original spec pre-filled, modify as needed.
5. Auto-generate adaptation checklist: footer, shownotes slug, time-sensitive content, slide budget, profanity register, locale references, commercial intent.

CFP Abstract Writing

1. Complete Phase 0-1 (lighter touch)
2. Skip Phase 2 (not needed for an abstract)
3. Write: title, abstract (200-300 words), key takeaways (3-5 bullets), speaker bio
4. Phase 4 revision as normal