Slide decks — Design

carbon6 makes presentation decks the way Claude does: from a prompt to an outline you approve, a look you choose, then slides built and checked by eye until they look professional. It is an app (docs/os.md §5), configuration only, on two general capabilities.

1. Decisions

Question	Choice	Why
Format	HTML master; PDF always; PPTX as an export later	Models write good HTML and CSS, Chromium renders it exactly, and the review loop works on it. PPTX keeps text and simple shapes editable, with complex visuals as images
Images	Charts, diagrams and icons drawn as SVG, and your own assets; generated images later, opt-in per deck; no stock	Data visuals make business decks; nothing needs a new account
Brand	Three themes ship as records; a brand kit becomes a fourth theme	Good-looking out of the box, configurable later
Workers	No installs for HTML and PDF (Chromium is already used by sessions); PPTX's Python packages are asked for once, as a decision, when that export comes	Downloads are yours to approve

2. General capabilities (built first)

• Tools show images to the model. read on an image file returns the image, and the browser's screenshot returns what it captures. It can capture one element (selector, e.g. one slide), the whole page, or the window at a set size (width, height). Tool images are kept in the conversation (the latest 12) and shown in the transcript. Every provider gets them (Anthropic, OpenAI Responses, Chat Completions).

• The browser prints PDFs: pdf {path} uses the page's CSS @page size and includes backgrounds.

• The decks-render kit (examples/packages/decks-render.json, docs/packages.md): headless Chromium, poppler, python-pptx and open fonts in an image every worker builds for itself, run in a sandbox with no network. Its tools: pdf, slides (a PNG per slide), slide (one) and pptx (a picture per slide). The decks app requires it (version 1.1), so a worker needs only Docker or Podman; the app's skills use kit_run instead of the browser.

3. The decks app (examples/apps/decks.json)

• Collections:
  • decks: title, brief, audience, length, theme, outline, stage (outlining → choosing → building → reviewing → delivered), folder and files.
  • themes: name, mood, and CSS custom properties: colours, type, accents. Three ship: Paper (light, editorial serif headings), Night (dark, high contrast), Signal (clean light, one strong accent).
• Skills:
  • deck-storyline: one message per slide, an arc, titles that state the point.
  • deck-design: grid, type scale, spacing, colour use, one idea per slide, data-ink.
  • deck-html: the slide markup and base CSS (1280×720 sections, layouts, print CSS for the PDF).
  • deck-visuals: SVG charts and diagrams by hand, icons, images.
  • deck-review: the checklist the agent applies to each screenshot.
• Templates:

  • deck: the whole flow, from a brief:

    1. record the deck;
    2. write the outline, then ask you as a decision (approve, or say what to change);
    3. ask which theme;
    4. build;
    5. look at every slide (rendered by the kit) and fix it;
    6. print the PDF (and PowerPoint, when asked);
    7. publish the files;
    8. mark the deck delivered.

    The agent waits for each answer, which arrives as a message.

  • deck-revise: changes to a delivered deck, from your notes.

• Views: a board of decks by stage, and the themes.

4. Later

1. PPTX export: HTML slides map to editable shapes and text, with charts as images. It needs python-pptx on the worker, asked for once.
2. Comments per page on Outputs (decks, PDFs, reports), sent to the session as revision requests.
3. Generated images for title and section slides, through a connection that makes images; opt-in per deck.
4. Brand kits: from your logo, colours and fonts in the memex, the agent drafts a theme record for you to approve.