slides-grab Plan Skill
Grounds the planning stage of a presentation with a structured outline and mandatory style selection before any slide gets generated.
Scope is strictly limited to the planning stage; generating slide HTML is explicitly forbidden; style selection and DESIGN.slides.md conversion require explicit user approval; the original DESIGN.md must remain untouched; instructions restrict tooling to the packaged CLI and bundled references. Data flow is transparent with no sensitive-data handling or overreach, and tests show imported design data is treated as untrusted. Deducted because attribution rests on an unverified publisher and rollback/isolation are not explicitly declared at the skill level.
SKILL.md and the three references are mutually consistent (stage boundary, approval loop, output format), workflows declare mandatory steps and priorities, and constraints like leaving the original DESIGN.md intact cover abnormal paths. Deducted because static review cannot execute key paths, the plan skill itself has no direct test coverage, and failure-feedback quality on invalid input is unknown.
Trigger condition is clear (starting a new presentation from scratch), with declared inputs, outputs, non-fit boundaries, and four prioritized style paths. Deducted for undeclared Chinese-language support and mainland-China reachability risk: installation depends on GitHub raw URLs and npm/Playwright downloads with no mirror or offline guidance.
Docs are well layered (concise SKILL.md plus three topical references), MIT license is clear, the output contract and naming are stable, and known limitations (experimental exports) are disclosed in the README. Deducted for no skill-level versioning or changelog, maintenance responsibility only implicit at repo level, and hidden assumptions about unpublished CLI behavior.
The core task (producing an approvable slide-outline.md) has a complete, directly executable workflow; density requirements for template/image-native mode exceed typical planning skills, giving clear marginal value. Deducted because no representative output is verified as directly usable and final quality depends on the downstream design stage; static cap below 7 not exceeded.
The repo contains a real test suite and CI workflows (npm publish, Pages), and tests like design-md-parser partially corroborate the CLI commands the skill invokes. Deducted because there are no tests covering the planning skill's key paths, no third-party execution evidence, and this is a static read only.
- Static review only; no commands were executed and the planning stage has no independent test evidence.
- Installation depends on GitHub raw URLs and npm/Playwright downloads, which may be unreachable from mainland-China networks; prepare mirrors or manual installation.
- The skill itself carries no version number or changelog; future updates may change the output contract — verify the revision before use.
- This skill covers planning only; final slide quality depends on the unaudited design/editing stage.
- Publisher identity is unverified; attribution and maintenance responsibility rest on current repository state.
What does this skill do, and when should you use it?
slides-grab-plan is the Stage 1 planning skill of the slides-grab workflow, usable in both Claude Code and Codex. Before any slide HTML is generated, it walks the agent through analyzing topic, audience, and tone, choosing a design style from four accepted paths, then writing and revising slide-outline.md until the user explicitly approves it. It supports imported corporate template packs, the bundled 95-style collection, DESIGN.md conversion, and free-form custom directions, with dedicated density rules for chart slides and image-native mode. The skill generates no slides itself; its output is an approved outline carrying style and mode metadata for the downstream design stage.
Reads the user's topic, intent, audience, tone constraints, and optional research findings; runs the mandatory style-selection step in priority order: slides-grab import-template to build a corporate template pack (template-pack.), list-styles / preview-styles to shortlist 2–3 of the 95 bundled styles, inspecting a local DESIGN.md (fetchable via import-design from a URL) and, if needed, converting it to DESIGN.slides.md via a web→slide mapping table, or proposing a written custom direction; produces slide-outline.md with a meta section (style: and mode: fields); annotates chart slides with chart type, data source, and comparison axis; in image-native mode, requires rendering template pages to PNG, matching each page's layout type and information density, and tagging template-page numbers; presents a summary after every revision and waits for explicit approval.
- A user in Claude Code or Codex says 'start a presentation on X from scratch' — this runs as the planning stage
- A team wants to reuse an existing corporate PPT, importing it as a template pack before fixing outline structure and density
- An author has a web-style DESIGN.md from voltagent/awesome-design-md and needs it translated into single-frame slide design language
- A quantitative report needs charts as evidence — lock chart type, data source, and comparison axis in the outline to avoid decorative pseudo-charts
- Visual-fidelity-first cases (replicating an existing corporate template page by page) using image-native mode with template-density outlines
- Iterating narrative structure and slide order with an agent across multiple rounds before committing to the design stage
What are this skill's strengths and limitations?
- Makes style selection a mandatory, front-loaded step, preventing rework during the design stage
- Four style paths cover corporate templates, a bundled style library, web design docs, and free-form directions
- Explicit density and data requirements for chart slides and image-native mode prevent hollow placeholder content
- Forms a closed loop with the slides-grab CLI (validate, design-gate, pdf, and other downstream commands)
- MIT licensed, with Korean/English docs and a live showcase gallery
- It is only Stage 1 of a multi-skill collection — it cannot produce slides alone and depends on later stages plus the packaged CLI
- Requires Node.js >= 20 and Playwright chromium, raising the environment bar
- Exports (pdf, convert, figma) are blocked until a design-gate proceed receipt is recorded
- PPTX and Figma exports are explicitly labeled experimental / unstable in the README
- codex-imagen image generation relies on an unsupported private Codex backend that may break, and needs an account entitled to image generation
- Outline quality depends heavily on user style feedback; approval loops can take multiple rounds
How do you install this skill?
Install the whole slides-grab collection (which includes this skill): npm install slides-grab && npx playwright install chromium, then run npx slides-grab install-skills --target all --scope user to install skills into Codex and Claude Code locations; or clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/NomaDamas/slides-grab.git && cd slides-grab && npm ci && npx playwright install chromium. Alternatively npx skills add ./node_modules/slides-grab -g -a codex -a claude-code --yes --copy --full-depth. The skill file lives at skills/slides-grab-plan/SKILL.md. The README does not document installing this single skill in isolation.
How do you use this skill?
In Claude Code, paste: Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NomaDamas/slides-grab/main/docs/installation/claude.md and follow every step. (For Codex, use the corresponding docs/installation/codex.md). Trigger it by asking the agent to start a new presentation; it will run style selection first (import-template / list-styles + your confirmation / DESIGN.md conversion / free-form custom), then write slide-outline.md. Hard rules: no outline before style approval; no slide-*.html generation in this stage; present a summary after each revision and wait for explicit approval. The outline must carry style: and mode: (html or image-native) metadata.
How does this skill compare with similar options?
The README positions slides-grab as an open-source alternative to Claude Design (a harness + editor + linter combination), and the acknowledgment section states the project is built on Builder Josh's ppt_team_agent.