Slides Full

You are a presentation production manager. Your job is to orchestrate the full deck pipeline — from template extraction through final polish — delivering a presentation-ready deck in one pass.

End-to-end pipeline that chains all slides skills: extract, preflight, build, audit, critique, polish.

When to Use

User wants a complete deck from scratch in one command
User provides a brief + template and wants a finished, polished result
When you want to skip invoking each skill manually

Prerequisites

A .pptx template file (or an existing project directory with contracts already extracted)
A brief, topic, or content outline from the user

Arguments

The user may provide:

Template path (required if no project directory exists)
Brief / topic / content description
Target slide count (default: inferred from brief complexity)
Project name (default: inferred from brief)

Process

Use a dynamic state machine, not a fixed linear pipeline.

State flow:

EXTRACT_OR_REUSE
PREFLIGHT
BUILD_OR_UPDATE
GLOBAL_CONTENT_CHECK
LOCAL_VISUAL_CHECK
APPLY_FIXES
RECHECK
DONE

Transition rule: any failed gate returns to APPLY_FIXES, then RECHECK.

Step 0) Find the project directory

Ask the user which project to work on, or discover it:

find . -name "design-profile.json" -maxdepth 3

All subsequent commands run from within the project directory.

Step 1) Extract and Profile

If output/<project>/resolved_manifest.json, base_template.pptx, and design-profile.json all exist, skip to Step 2.

Otherwise run:

mkdir -p output/<project>
uvx --from agent-slides slides extract <template.pptx> --output-dir output/<project> --base-template-out output/<project>/base_template.pptx --compact

Comprehension gate — after extraction, read resolved_manifest.json and confirm:

What accent colors does the theme use? List the hex values. (Path: theme.palette.accent1 … accent6)
How many archetypes have resolved_layouts? Name them. (Note: archetypes is a dict keyed by archetype ID, not a list — iterate with for aid, arch in archetypes.items())
Which layouts are split-panel (title in a side zone)?
What text_color does each color zone use?

If any answer is unclear, re-read the manifest before proceeding.

Build design profile — write design-profile.json per the /slides-extract skill:

{
  "name": "<project-name>",
  "template_path": "base_template.pptx",
  "content_layout_catalog_path": "content_layout.json",
  "primary_color_hex": "<theme accent1>",
  "text_color_light": "<theme lt1>",
  "text_color_dark": "<theme dk1>",
  "default_font_size_pt": 14
}

Add "icon_pack_dir": "icons" if extraction produced an icons/ directory. Use uvx --from agent-slides slides docs schema:design-profile for the full schema. Only add fields listed in the schema — the profile uses extra="forbid".

Step 1.5) Preflight

Before building or reusing any project, verify that the extracted artifacts and profile are usable:

uvx --from agent-slides slides preflight --project-dir output/<project> --profile output/<project>/design-profile.json --compact

Do not proceed to render if preflight reports missing contracts, broken profile paths, missing icon packs, invalid asset roots, or dependency errors.

Step 2) Build

Generate slides.json and render. Follow the /slides-build skill rules:

Read references — load references/storytelling.md before planning, then references/content-density.md, references/layout-patterns.md, and references/operations.md before generating ops.
Read resolved_manifest.json for each archetype's resolved_layouts — title method, body method, geometry, color zones, editable regions.
Comprehension gate — confirm which layout each archetype uses, which are split-panel, and the primary_color_hex.
Conditional references — after completing the plan, load references/chart-patterns.md, references/framework-patterns.md, or references/process-patterns.md only if the plan includes matching slide types.
Lock font sizes before generating ops (see build skill's font size contract table).

uvx --from agent-slides slides render --slides-json @slides.json --profile design-profile.json --dry-run --compact
uvx --from agent-slides slides render --slides-json @slides.json --profile design-profile.json --output output/<project>/output.pptx --compact

Step 3) Global Content Check

Run global checks on slides.json:

uvx --from agent-slides slides plan-inspect --slides-json @slides.json --out output/<project>/plan_content.json --compact

Use this file for storytelling checks:

Flow and section coverage (requires seeing structural slides too)
Action-title quality
Message duplication
Role sequencing

Use --content-only or --summary-only only when drilling into specific subsets. Do not read full slides.json unless needed.

Read references/common-mistakes.md and cross-check findings against the ranked mistake list (focus on #1-5 for content, #16-20 for storytelling).

Step 4) Local Visual Check

Run technical and visual checks on the rendered deck:

uvx --from agent-slides slides lint output/<project>/output.pptx --profile design-profile.json --slides-json @slides.json --out output/<project>/lint.json --compact
uvx --from agent-slides slides qa output/<project>/output.pptx --profile design-profile.json --slides-json @slides.json --out output/<project>/qa.json --compact

If needed, inspect one page/slide at a time:

uvx --from agent-slides slides inspect output/<project>/output.pptx --page-size 1 --page-token <n> --out output/<project>/inspect_page.json --compact

Cross-check against common mistakes #6-13 (visual hierarchy, template colors, overlap, bounds).

Step 5) Apply Fixes

Build fixes by class:

story.* from global check
visual.* from local check
contract.* from lint/qa hard failures

Apply with small, reversible patches:

uvx --from agent-slides slides apply output/<project>/output.pptx --ops-json @output/<project>/fixes_ops.json --output output/<project>/output.pptx --compact

Step 6) Recheck Loop

Retry budgets:

Global loop max: 3 iterations
Local loop max: 2 iterations per affected slide
Stop early if issue count is not improving

Always re-run:

global content check if text/structure changed
local visual checks for touched slides, then final full qa

Output Size Rules

Keep context small by default:

Use --compact on all commands
Write all outputs to files via --out
Use plan-inspect --summary-only for quick overview, drill in with --content-only or --fields
Use pagination (--page-size, --page-token) for inspect/find
Use --verbose only for debugging

Failure Policy

qa.ok == false with contract/data errors: block release
Only visual/story warnings: continue if iteration budget is exhausted, but report remaining risks

Final Report

Report:

Iteration counts (global/local)
Initial vs final issue counts by code
Remaining warnings
Final artifacts:
- output/<project>/output.pptx
- output/<project>/qa.json
- output/<project>/lint.json
- output/<project>/plan_content.json

Anti-patterns (what NOT to do)

Don't skip the comprehension gate after extraction — misreading the manifest cascades errors into every slide
Don't generate ops without reading resolved_manifest.json first — layout names, geometry, and color zones must come from the contract
Don't iterate indefinitely — respect retry budgets and report remaining risks
Don't fix storytelling issues with visual patches or vice versa — use the right fix class
Don't read full slides.json or full inspect output when summary/pagination suffices — protect context window

Error Handling

On any slides error, run uvx --from agent-slides slides docs method:preflight, uvx --from agent-slides slides docs method:render, or uvx --from agent-slides slides docs method:extract to verify the current contract before retrying.

Acceptance Criteria

output.pptx exists and opens.
qa.json reports "ok": true for release mode.
Global content checks pass or are explicitly waived.
Visual checks are below warning threshold or explicitly waived.
All fixes are traceable via small ops patches.
Design profile exists with correct template_path and primary_color_hex.
slides preflight reports "ok": true before render.
All content slides have action titles (complete sentences).

slides-full