slides-creator

Slides Creator

Narrative-first slide deck creation.

This skill does what machines can't do — narrative co-design with humans — and delegates everything else to the best tool for the job (baoyu-slide-deck).

First Law: The User's Voice Is Primary

This is the highest-priority rule. Nothing overrides it.

AI cannot write high-quality content for the user. It can only help the user express their own content better.

Step 1 is ALWAYS: collect the user's original words. Their transcripts, their articles, their notes, their voice. AI-generated content without user source material is garbage — polished, plausible, unusable garbage.

Weight hierarchy: User's own words > User-approved external material > AI synthesis > AI invention.

The output must sound like the user, at their best. Something they could actually say, confidently, in their own voice.

Corollary: If the user has no existing content, your job is to help them articulate their thoughts through structured conversation — NOT to fabricate content for them.

Corollary: External materials (articles, references) must be presented to the user for selection and validation. AI does not decide what is relevant. The user does.

See: references/content-creation-first-law.md for full principle, application to all content types, and failure modes.

Architecture

slides-creator (this skill)
├── Phase 0: Source Collection    ← Gather user's original words
├── Phase 1: Narrative Design     ← Human expertise + ABCDEFG discussion
├── Phase 2: Content Structuring  ← Convert narrative to machine-readable input
├── Phase 3: Delegate to baoyu-slide-deck
│   ├── --prompts-only  → outline + prompts
│   └── --images-only   → images + PPTX + PDF
└── Phase 6: Post-processing      ← Directory reorg + speaker notes extraction

Rule: If baoyu-slide-deck can do it, we call it. We only do what baoyu-slide-deck cannot: narrative discussion, ABCDEFG methodology, and user's preferred directory structure.

---

Phase 0: Source Material Collection

CRITICAL: Do NOT proceed to Phase 1 until user source materials are collected.

Goal: Gather the user's own words and their approved external references.

Step 0.1: Request User's Original Content

Ask the user for:

• Transcripts of their past talks, meetings, or discussions
• Articles they have written or approved
• Notes or drafts they have prepared
• Previous decks they have delivered
• Voice memos or any recorded thoughts

If none exist, proceed to Phase 1 with the understanding that the entire narrative must be extracted from the user's head through structured conversation.

Step 0.2: Gather External References (Optional)

• Search for relevant external materials (articles, reports, references)
• Present findings to the user for selection — do not assume relevance
• Only include materials the user explicitly approves

Step 0.3: Organize Source Materials

Save all source materials to 00-上游/（根目录或 source-materials/ 子目录均可）：

00-上游/
├── prompt-最初提示词.txt       # 用户原始 prompt（如有）
├── narrative-brief.md          # Phase 1 输出
├── content.md                  # Phase 2 输出（baoyu 输入）
├── style-instructions.md       # 视觉设计 SSOT
├── outline.md                  # 来自 baoyu-slide-deck
├── source-materials/           # （可选子目录）
│   ├── user-transcript-1.md
│   ├── user-article-2.md
│   ├── user-notes-3.md
│   └── external-ref-4.md (user-approved)

Note: 对于已有项目，源文件可直接放在 00-上游/ 根目录；新建议项目时可用 source-materials/ 子目录保持整洁。

Self-check: Do we have the user's own words? If not, are we prepared to extract everything through conversation? Do NOT invent content.

---

Phase 1: Narrative Structure Discussion

CRITICAL: Do NOT generate any files in this phase. Only discuss.

Goal: Align on the narrative arc, emotional journey, and slide-level logic before any visual work begins.

Principle: "你不要直接去写，你应该跟我讨论"

Input: Phase 0 source materials. Every insight in this discussion must be grounded in the user's own words or their explicitly approved references.

Discussion Framework (ABCDEFG Model)

Step	Question	Purpose
A	Attention	How do we hook in the first 30 seconds?
B	Benefit	What's the promised takeaway?
C	Credibility	Why should the audience trust us?
D	Difference	What's the contrarian or novel angle?
E	Evidence	What proof, demo, or story backs this?
F	Framework	What mental model do we leave them with?
G	Go	What should they do Monday morning?

Required Inputs

Ask user if missing:

• Topic: What's the talk about? (1 sentence)
• Audience: Who's listening? (technical level, role, context)
• Duration: How long is the talk?
• Key messages: What must they remember? (3 max)
• Tone: Educational? Persuasive? Provocative? Inspirational?
• Existing content: Articles, transcripts, notes, previous decks?
• Constraints: Must-use content? Avoid topics? Brand guidelines?

Discussion Checklist

1. Opening strategy: Shock? Story? Question? Demo?
2. The arc: Where's the tension? Where's the release?
3. Transition logic: How does each slide lead to the next?
4. The "one thing": If they forget everything, what's the ONE thing?
5. Call to action: What do they do after the talk?

Anti-patterns to Flag

• ❌ Too many slides for the time (crowded, rushed)
• ❌ Jumping into details without setting context
• ❌ No emotional arc (flat, forgettable)
• ❌ Ending without a clear takeaway
• ❌ Trying to teach too many things at once

Validation

Summarize agreed narrative arc in 3-5 bullet points. Get explicit user confirmation before proceeding to Phase 2.

Self-check: Did we discuss? Or did we jump to generation? If the latter, go back.

---

Phase 2: Content Structuring

Goal: Produce two SSOT files that baoyu-slide-deck can consume.

2.1 Create narrative-brief.md

Store in 00-上游/:

# Narrative Brief

**Topic**: [Topic name]
**Audience**: [description]
**Duration**: [N min]
**Language**: [zh/en/etc]
**Tone**: [educational/persuasive/provocative/inspirational]
**Key Messages**: (3 max)
1. ...
2. ...
3. ...

## ABCDEFG Arc

| Step | Answer |
|------|--------|
| A - Attention | ... |
| B - Benefit | ... |
| C - Credibility | ... |
| D - Difference | ... |
| E - Evidence | ... |
| F - Framework | ... |
| G - Go | ... |

## Slide Count Recommendation

| Duration | Recommended | Max |
|----------|-------------|-----|
| 10-15 min | 8-12 | 12 |
| 20-30 min | 12-18 | 20 |
| 30-45 min | 15-25 | 28 |
| 45-60 min | 20-30 | 35 |

**Recommended**: [N] slides for [duration] talk

## Content Sources

- [ ] Original user prompt saved
- [ ] Existing articles/notes/transcripts
- [ ] Previous decks

## Style Direction

[User's style preference or "to be decided in Phase 3"]

2.2 Create content.md (for baoyu-slide-deck)

Convert narrative brief into baoyu-slide-deck input format:

# [Title]

## Overview

[2-3 paragraph summary of the talk content]

## Key Points

1. [Point 1]
2. [Point 2]
3. [Point 3]

## Structure

### Opening ([duration])
[Hook content]

### Section 1: [Name] ([duration])
[Content]

### Section 2: [Name] ([duration])
[Content]

### Closing ([duration])
[CTA content]

## Audience
[Same as narrative-brief]

## Notes
[Any constraints or special requirements]

2.3 Create style-instructions.md (Optional)

If user has strong style preferences, create this SSOT file in 00-上游/:

<STYLE_INSTRUCTIONS>
Design Aesthetic: [Description]

Background:
  Texture: [clean/grid/organic/etc]
  Base Color: [#HEX]

Typography:
  Headlines: [Style, size, color, weight]
  Body: [Style, size, color, weight]

Color Palette:
  Primary Text: [#HEX] - usage
  Body Text: [#HEX] - usage
  Background: [#HEX]
  Accent 1: [#HEX] - usage
  Accent 2: [#HEX] - usage
  Accent 3: [#HEX] - usage

Visual Elements:
  - [Element 1]
  - [Element 2]

Density Guidelines:
  - Max [N] text elements per slide
  - [Other rules]

Style Rules:
  Do: [List]
  Don't: [List]
</STYLE_INSTRUCTIONS>

Self-check: Read narrative-brief.md back to user. Confirm it matches the Phase 1 discussion before proceeding.

Content Integrity Check: Every claim, quote, and example in content.md must be traceable to:

1. User's own words (from Phase 0 source materials)
2. User-approved external references
3. User's explicit statements during Phase 1 discussion

AI must NOT invent facts, quotes, or examples. If the user said it, use it. If they didn't, ask them. If they don't have it, mark it as [TODO: user to provide].

---

Phase 3: Delegate to baoyu-slide-deck (Prompts)

Goal: Generate outline and prompts using baoyu-slide-deck.

Step 3.1: Prepare Input

Ensure content.md is ready. If style-instructions.md exists, note the style preference for passing to baoyu-slide-deck.

Step 3.2: Call baoyu-slide-deck

在 Claude Code 中调用 baoyu-slide-deck skill（两种等效方式）：

/baoyu-slide-deck 00-上游/content.md --prompts-only [--style <preset>]

或直接使用 Skill 工具（当 / 命令不可用时）：

Skill({"skill": "baoyu-slide-deck", "args": "00-上游/content.md --prompts-only [--style <preset>]"})

Pre-call setup:

1. Inject narrative-brief: Append narrative-brief.md (or its ABCDEFG arc section) to the top of content.md so baoyu receives the narrative structure, not just raw content.
2. Inject confirmed choices: Prepend a metadata block to content.md with the already-confirmed choices. This acts as a strong signal for baoyu's auto-detect and reduces the chance of style drift during confirmation:

   <!-- CONFIRMED CHOICES — do not override without discussion -->
   - Style: [preset name or custom]
   - Audience: [audience from Phase 1]
   - Slide count: [N slides for X-min talk]
   - Language: [zh/en/etc]
   - Review preference: [skip outline / skip prompts / none]
   

3. Style selection: If user specified a baoyu preset → use it; if custom style-instructions.md exists → use --style custom; otherwise auto-detect.

⚠️ Confirmation overlap warning: baoyu-slide-deck Step 2 will ask the user to confirm style, audience, slide count, outline review, and prompt review. Since these were already discussed in Phase 1, instruct the user to stick with the choices we just made rather than reconsidering. This prevents confirmation fatigue and style drift.

User's Description	baoyu Preset
Flat cartoon, tech explainer	vector-illustration or bold-editorial
Hand-drawn edu, infographic, process	hand-drawn-edu
Chalkboard, workshop	chalkboard or sketch-notes
Corporate, B2B, investor deck	corporate or minimal
Editorial, magazine, product launch	bold-editorial
Journalism, explainer, science communication	editorial-infographic
Dark, gaming, atmospheric	dark-atmospheric
Retro, pixel, developer talk	pixel-art
Watercolor, lifestyle, travel	watercolor
Blueprint, technical, architecture	blueprint
Academic, research, bilingual	intuition-machine
Notion, SaaS, product demo	notion
Story, fantasy, animation	fantasy-animation
Biology, chemistry, medical	scientific
History, heritage, vintage	vintage

Step 3.3: Post-process Prompts

After baoyu-slide-deck generates prompts in prompts/:

1. Copy to user's structure: Move/copy prompts to 03-prompts/
2. Inject custom style: If style-instructions.md exists, ensure FULL content is embedded in every prompt file
3. Add narrative goal: Append // NARRATIVE GOAL section to each prompt based on narrative-brief.md

Prompt template addition:

---

## NARRATIVE CONTEXT

// NARRATIVE GOAL
[What this slide achieves in the talk arc]

// SPEAKER NOTES
[What the speaker says while this slide is shown]

Self-check: All prompts include full style-instructions.md? Narrative goals added? Files in 03-prompts/?

---

Phase 4: Prompt Review (Conditional)

Goal: Human review before image generation.

If user wants to review (recommended):

1. Display prompt summary table
2. Ask user: "Ready to generate images?"
3. If edits needed → user edits 03-prompts/*.md → regenerate specific prompts via baoyu-slide-deck

If user skips review: Proceed to Phase 5.

---

Phase 5: Delegate to baoyu-slide-deck (Images)

Goal: Generate slide images.

Step 5.1: Call baoyu-slide-deck

/baoyu-slide-deck . --images-only

Or using Skill tool:

Skill({"skill": "baoyu-slide-deck", "args": ". --images-only"})

Important: baoyu-slide-deck expects prompts in a flat prompts/ directory (its native output structure). If you have already reorganized to 03-prompts/ (Phase 6), create a temporary copy before calling:

# From the project root (where 03-prompts/ exists)
cp -r 03-prompts prompts
/baoyu-slide-deck . --images-only
rm -rf prompts  # clean up after

Note on deliverables: baoyu-slide-deck internally generates .pptx and .pdf via its own merge-to-pptx.ts and merge-to-pdf.ts scripts (Step 8 of its workflow). These are the primary deliverables — they live in baoyu's flat output directory (slide-deck/{topic-slug}/).

The scripts/merge_to_pptx.py and scripts/merge_to_pdf.py in slides-creator are not duplicates. They serve a different purpose:

• baoyu merge: for baoyu's flat directory structure (PNG + prompts at same level)
• slides-creator merge: for the reorganized directory structure (02-slides/ + 03-prompts/)

Use slides-creator's merge scripts only after Phase 6 reorganization, or if baoyu's merge step fails.

Step 5.2: Visual Verification

After generation:

1. Test slide: Read 01-slide-cover.png (or first generated slide)
2. Style check: Compare against style-instructions.md
3. Text check: Verify Chinese/English text legibility
4. If issues: Update affected 03-prompts/*.md → copy cp -r 03-prompts prompts → regenerate via /baoyu-slide-deck . --regenerate N (或 Skill({"skill": "baoyu-slide-deck", "args": ". --regenerate N"})) → clean up rm -rf prompts

Self-check: All slides generated? Style consistent? Text legible?

---

Phase 6: Post-processing & Delivery

Goal: Reorganize baoyu-slide-deck output into user's preferred structure.

6.1 Directory Reorganization

baoyu-slide-deck outputs to slide-deck/{topic-slug}/:

slide-deck/{topic-slug}/
├── source-{slug}.md
├── outline.md
├── prompts/
├── *.png
├── {topic-slug}.pptx
└── {topic-slug}.pdf

Reorganize to user's structure:

{project-name}/
├── 00-上游/                    # Source materials
│   ├── prompt-最初提示词.txt   # Original user prompt (if saved)
│   ├── narrative-brief.md      # Phase 1 output
│   ├── content.md              # Phase 2 output (baoyu input)
│   ├── style-instructions.md   # Visual design SSOT
│   └── outline.md              # From baoyu-slide-deck
├── 01-成品/                    # Final deliverables
│   ├── {project-name}.pdf
│   └── {project-name}.pptx
├── 02-slides/                  # Generated PNGs (当前版本)
│   ├── 01-slide-cover.png
│   └── ...
├── 03-prompts/                 # Per-slide prompts (SSOT)
│   ├── v6/                     # 支持版本子目录（如 v6, v7...）
│   │   ├── 01-slide-cover.md
│   │   └── ...
│   └── 01-slide-cover.md       # 或平铺结构
├── speaker-notes.md            # Auto-extracted from 03-prompts/ via extract_notes.py
├── v6/                         # baoyu-slide-deck 临时输出（需搬迁到 02-slides/）
│   └── ...
└── _archive/                   # Historical versions
    └── v1/

Note on versioning:

• 03-prompts/ 支持平铺或版本子目录（v6/, v7/）。当同一项目多次迭代时，用子目录保留历史版本。
• baoyu-slide-deck 可能直接输出到项目根目录的临时文件夹（如 v6/）。Post-processing 时需将这些 PNG 移动到 02-slides/。

Archive current version (before major iteration):

uv run scripts/archive_version.py --project /path/to/project

Archives 02-slides/ + 03-prompts/ to _archive/v{N}/ (auto-incremented).

6.2 Extract Speaker Notes

Use scripts/extract_notes.py to extract structured notes from 03-prompts/*.md:

uv run scripts/extract_notes.py --prompts 03-prompts --output speaker-notes.md

Extracts:

• // NARRATIVE GOAL sections
• // SPEAKER NOTES sections
• Falls back to // KEY CONTENT if neither found

Output format (speaker-notes.md):

# Speaker Notes

## 01-slide-cover
**Narrative Goal**: ...
**Speaker Notes**: ...

## 02-slide-intro
...

Note: main.ts auto-runs this step if 03-prompts/ exists.

6.3 Archive Original Prompt

If user provided an original prompt (like the 35KB prompt for 龙虾 vs Claude Code):

• Save as 00-上游/prompt-最初提示词.txt

6.4 Final Verification Checklist

• PDF opens and all slides render correctly
• PPTX opens without errors
• PNG sequence numbered correctly (01, 02, ...)
• Speaker notes cover all slides
• Style consistent across all slides
• No garbled or missing text
• 00-上游/ contains all source SSOT files
• 03-prompts/ contains all prompt files

---

Iteration Workflow

Path A: Content Changes

User feedback → Update narrative-brief.md → Update content.md
→ Regenerate prompts (/baoyu-slide-deck content.md --prompts-only)
→ Regenerate images (/baoyu-slide-deck . --images-only)
→ Reorganize + extract notes

Path B: Style Changes

User feedback → Update style-instructions.md
→ Update all prompts (inject new style into 03-prompts/*.md)
→ Regenerate all images (via /baoyu-slide-deck . --images-only)
→ Reorganize + extract notes

Path C: Single Slide Fix

User feedback → Update 03-prompts/NN-slide-xxx.md
→ Copy prompts: cp -r 03-prompts prompts
→ /baoyu-slide-deck . --regenerate N
→ Clean up: rm -rf prompts
→ Replace in 02-slides/
→ Regenerate PPTX/PDF

Note on --regenerate: baoyu-slide-deck reads from flat prompts/ directory. After reorganization to 03-prompts/, create a temporary copy (cp -r 03-prompts prompts) before regenerating. If you haven't reorganized yet (still in baoyu's flat structure), call directly without copying.

---

Script Reference

Script	Purpose
scripts/main.ts	Post-processing: validate + extract notes + generate PDF/PPTX
scripts/merge_to_pptx.py	Merge PNGs to PPTX with structured speaker notes from 03-prompts/*.md
scripts/merge_to_pdf.py	Merge PNGs to PDF (reorganized 02-slides/ structure)
scripts/validate_slides.py	Check aspect ratio, naming, missing slides
scripts/extract_notes.py	Extract structured speaker notes from 03-prompts/*.md to speaker-notes.md
scripts/archive_version.py	Archive 02-slides/ + 03-prompts/ to _archive/v{N}/

---

Failure Log (Do NOT Repeat)

Failure	Root Cause	Prevention
AI wrote content for the user — polished garbage	Violated First Law: skipped Phase 0, fabricated quotes/examples. See references/content-creation-first-law.md	First Law is absolute: collect user's words FIRST. No source material = STOP and ask. AI assists expression, never replaces it
Generated 30 slides for 20-min talk	Didn't enforce slide count guide	Check duration ÷ 2 = max slides
Style drift between versions	Style instructions not in prompts	Paste FULL style-instructions.md into every prompt
Text unreadable in images	Model doesn't support Chinese well	Test with Chinese text first
Narrative arc flat	Jumped to prompts without Phase 1	ALWAYS discuss narrative first
User unhappy with first draft	Didn't confirm before batch	Generate ONE test slide, get approval
Directory mess	Didn't use consistent structure	Always use 00-上游/01-成品/02-slides/03-prompts
Redundant work	Tried to replace baoyu-slide-deck	Delegate visual generation, focus on narrative
Merge scripts questioned as duplicates	Baoyu merge scripts exist but: (1) path unstable (~/.claude/plugins/...); (2) expect flat prompts/ dir; (3) inject full base prompt as notes noise	Keep own merge scripts for reorganized structure. Validate before deleting — call baoyu merge first if accessible

---

References

• references/content-creation-first-law.md — Universal principle: user's voice is primary, applies to all content types (slides, articles, ads, courses)
• references/narrative-design-guide.md — ABCDEFG model detailed guide
• references/prompt-templates/ — Prompt templates for common slide types
• references/style-gallery.md — Visual style gallery with examples