scientific-slides
Build slide decks and presentations for research talks. Use this for making PowerPoint slides, conference presentations, seminar talks, research presentations, thesis defense slides, or any scientific talk. Provides slide structure, design templates, timing guidance, and visual validation. Works with PowerPoint and LaTeX Beamer.
75
67%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
89%
4.45xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Advisory
Suggest reviewing before use
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./scientific-skills/scientific-slides/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
100%Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.
This is a strong skill description that clearly communicates its purpose, lists concrete capabilities, and provides extensive trigger terms covering the academic/research presentation domain. It uses proper third-person voice, explicitly states both what the skill does and when to use it, and occupies a distinct niche that minimizes conflict with general-purpose presentation tools.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: 'Build slide decks and presentations', 'slide structure', 'design templates', 'timing guidance', 'visual validation'. Also specifies concrete tools: 'PowerPoint and LaTeX Beamer'. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (build slide decks, provides slide structure, design templates, timing guidance, visual validation) and 'when' ('Use this for making PowerPoint slides, conference presentations, seminar talks, research presentations, thesis defense slides, or any scientific talk'). | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Excellent coverage of natural terms users would say: 'PowerPoint slides', 'conference presentations', 'seminar talks', 'research presentations', 'thesis defense slides', 'scientific talk', 'slide decks', 'LaTeX Beamer'. These are highly natural phrases a user would use. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Clearly carved out niche focused on research/academic presentations specifically, with distinct triggers like 'thesis defense', 'seminar talks', 'scientific talk', 'LaTeX Beamer' that distinguish it from a general presentation skill. Unlikely to conflict with other skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 12 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
35%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill is comprehensive but severely over-engineered for a SKILL.md file. It repeats the same core advice (visual-first, minimal text, use citations, modern colors) at least 5 times across different sections, wasting significant token budget. The actionable script commands are good but buried under extensive presentation coaching that Claude doesn't need. The content would be dramatically improved by cutting 60-70% of the advisory content and relying on the reference files it already points to.
Suggestions
Cut the file to ~150 lines by removing redundant advice (visual-first design, minimal text, citations importance are each stated 5+ times) and moving detailed guidance to the reference files that already exist.
Remove content Claude already knows: what makes good presentations, basic design principles, practice advice ('have water available'), and explanations of talk types. Focus only on tool-specific workflows and project-specific conventions.
Consolidate the three workflows (PDF, PPT, Beamer) into a concise decision table at the top, with brief workflow steps for each, rather than repeating detailed instructions across multiple sections.
Move the Common Pitfalls, Design Principles, and Timing sections entirely to their respective reference files (which already exist) and replace with one-line pointers.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | Extremely verbose at ~600+ lines. Extensively explains concepts Claude already knows (what a conference talk is, what makes good design, basic presentation advice like 'have water available'). Massive redundancy - the same points about visual-first design, minimal text, and citations are repeated 5+ times throughout. The anti-pattern lists, common pitfalls, and design principles sections all rehash the same advice. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | Provides concrete bash commands for the generate_slide_image.py and slides_to_pdf.py scripts with good examples, but many of the scripts referenced (validate_presentation.py, pdf_to_images.py) lack verification that they exist or work. Much of the content is advisory rather than executable - design principles, timing advice, and practice schedules are descriptive guidance rather than actionable instructions. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The PDF workflow (plan → generate → combine) is reasonably clear with numbered steps and commands. However, the document presents multiple overlapping workflows (PDF, PPT, Beamer) without clear decision criteria upfront, and the 6-stage development process buries the actual execution steps under extensive advisory content. The visual validation workflow has good feedback loops but is scattered across multiple sections. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | References to external files are well-signaled (references/, assets/ directories), but the SKILL.md itself is monolithic with enormous amounts of inline content that should be in reference files. The design principles, talk-type guidance, common pitfalls, and timing sections are all extensively detailed inline despite having dedicated reference files listed at the bottom. The main file should be a concise overview pointing to these references. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 7 / 12 Passed |
Validation
81%Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.
Validation — 9 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
| Criteria | Description | Result |
|---|---|---|
skill_md_line_count | SKILL.md is long (1155 lines); consider splitting into references/ and linking | Warning |
metadata_version | 'metadata.version' is missing | Warning |
Total | 9 / 11 Passed | |
- Repository
- K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills
- Commit
25e1c0f
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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