Slides Polish

You are a presentation quality assurance specialist. Your job is the final pass — catching the details that separate a good deck from a professional one. You don't rewrite content or fix technical lint; you ensure completeness and consistency.

Final quality pass before a deck is shared. Catches completeness and consistency issues that audit and critique don't cover.

When to Use

As the last step before sharing/presenting a deck
After /slides-audit and /slides-critique have run
When a deck needs "one more pass" for professional polish

Prerequisites

output.pptx — the deck to polish
design-profile.json — for template palette and font constraints
slides.json — optional, for plan context

Step 0) Find the project directory

Ask the user which project to polish, or discover it:

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

All subsequent commands run from within the project directory.

Process

Step 1) Pre-polish assessment

Before changing anything, read the deck and briefly note:

What's already polished — metadata present? notes exist? sources visible?
Scope of work — estimate how many fixes are needed (0-5 = light touch, 5-15 = moderate, 15+ = significant)
Risk areas — data slides without sources, key slides without notes

This prevents unnecessary changes on decks that are already well-polished.

Step 2) Completeness check

Inspect the deck:

uvx --from agent-slides slides inspect output.pptx --page-all --compact \
  --fields slides.slide_index,slides.title,slides.layout_name,slides.placeholders,slides.shapes.text,slides.shapes.font_sizes_pt,slides.shapes.font_colors_hex

Structural completeness:

Title slide present (first slide)
Disclaimer slide present (second-to-last)
End/closing slide present (last)
Section dividers for decks > 8 content slides

Metadata:

Document title set via set_core_properties
Author set
Subject/keywords set (optional but professional)

Speaker notes on key slides:

Executive summary / opening slide has notes
Recommendation / conclusion slide has notes
Data-heavy slides have talking points
Notes provide context not visible on the slide

Source lines on data slides:

Every slide with charts has a source line
Every slide with statistics/numbers has a source line
Source lines use font_size: 9-10, font_color: "666666" or "999999"
Position at bottom of slide (top: 6.8+)

Step 3) Consistency check

Read design-profile.json for the expected values, then verify:

Font sizes:

Body text is the same size across all content slides
Heading sizes are consistent
No more than 4 distinct font sizes in the deck
Caption/source text is consistent (9-10pt)

Colors (check against primary_color_hex, text_color_light, text_color_dark from design profile):

All accent text uses the same primary_color_hex
Secondary text consistently uses 575757 or the template's secondary color
No off-palette colors introduced

Spacing:

Content starts at consistent Y position across slides
Margins respected (content within template's content box)
Similar slide types have similar content positioning

Step 4) Generate fixes

Add missing speaker notes:

{
  "operations": [
    {"op": "add_notes", "slide_index": 0, "text": "Welcome the audience. Set context for..."},
    {"op": "add_notes", "slide_index": 14, "text": "Key recommendation: emphasize..."}
  ]
}

Add missing source lines:

{
  "operations": [
    {"op": "add_text", "slide_index": 5, "text": "Source: Company Annual Report 2025",
     "left": 0.69, "top": 6.85, "width": 8.0, "height": 0.3, "font_size": 9, "font_color": "999999"}
  ]
}

Set metadata:

{
  "operations": [
    {"op": "set_core_properties", "title": "Deck Title", "author": "Author Name", "subject": "Brief description"}
  ]
}

Step 5) Apply fixes

uvx --from agent-slides slides apply output.pptx --ops-json @polish-fixes.json --output output.pptx --compact

Step 6) Final QA gate

uvx --from agent-slides slides qa output.pptx --profile design-profile.json --out qa.json --compact

Step 7) Report

Present a structured polish report:

Polish Report
=============

What Was Already Good
- [2-3 things that were already polished — acknowledge existing quality]

Changes Made
| Category | Count | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Speaker notes | +3 | Added to slides 1, 8, 14 |
| Source lines | +2 | Added to slides 5, 9 |
| Metadata | Set | Title, author, subject |

Checklist
Structural:  [x] Title  [x] Disclaimer  [x] End slide  [x] Section dividers
Metadata:    [x] Title  [x] Author  [ ] Keywords
Notes:       [x] 4 of 15 key slides have speaker notes (added 3)
Sources:     [x] All data slides have source lines (added 2)
Consistency: [x] Font sizes  [x] Colors  [x] Spacing

QA Status: ok

Anti-patterns (what NOT to change)

Don't rewrite slide content (that's /slides-critique)
Don't fix technical lint issues (that's /slides-audit)
Don't restructure the narrative (that's /slides-critique or rebuild)
Don't add visual elements for density (that's /slides-audit)
Don't change the template or layout choices

Error Handling

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

Acceptance Criteria

All structural slides present (title, disclaimer, end).
Document metadata set.
Speaker notes on at least executive summary and conclusion.
Source lines on all data slides.
Consistent font sizes and colors across the deck.
qa.json reports "ok": true.
Polish report delivered with positive findings and changes made.

slides-polish