Goal

• Review and criticize a slide deck, or a subset of its slides, given by the user
• Identify mistakes and improvements, focusing on factual errors rather than style
• Propose concrete, ranked improvements to content, flow, visual clarity, pacing, and audience fit

Workflow

Read the Material

• Read .claude/skills/slides.rules.md for the rules that slides must follow

• Read the slide deck file passed by the user

  • Note the deck title, target audience, and stated learning objectives (if any)
  • Read all slides in order to understand the narrative arc

• Find the context of the presentation:

  • Venue and duration (lecture, conference talk, workshop, etc.)
  • Assumed prior knowledge
  • Adjacent or prerequisite slide decks

Criticize

• Read .claude/skills/text.criticize/SKILL.md for general approaches to review and criticize text

• Evaluate along these axes, reporting only issues you are confident about:

  • Slide-level clarity:
    • Too much text per slide (exceeds visible time + cognitive load)
    • Unclear titles or takeaways
    • Missing or weak visual hierarchy
    • Jargon or concepts assumed without intro
  • Deck flow & narrative:
    • Abrupt transitions between ideas
    • Slides in wrong order (should come earlier/later)
    • Orphaned or tangential slides
    • Missing bridge slides to connect concepts
    • Pacing (too slow intro, rushed conclusion, uneven rhythm)
  • Audience fit:
    • Level too high or too low for stated audience
    • Unexplained background assumptions
    • Missing motivation or context for why this matters
  • Structure & consistency:
    • Inconsistent formatting or visual style
    • Slides that break the template (if one exists)
    • Missing the mandatory standalone * Roadmap (first slide) or * Summary (last content slide, before * References); see .claude/skills/slides.rules.md ## Roadmap Slide / ## Summary Slide
    • * Roadmap out of sync with the deck's actual # topics (stale after edits), or * Summary restating stale takeaways
    • Speaker notes missing or incomplete
  • Timing & scope:
    • Deck too long or too short for the slot
    • Individual slides that will overrun or underrun their time
    • Candidates to expand, collapse, or split
  • Engagement & visuals:
    • Slides that rely only on bullet points (no visuals, examples, or storytelling)
    • Diagrams or images that are unclear or misleading
    • Missing opportunities for interaction or questions

• Rank each issue by severity:

  • High: loses attention, undermines a key point, or creates wrong takeaway
  • Medium: reduces clarity or engagement
  • Low: minor polish or consistency

Write Result

• Write results as plan-slides.criticize.md in the current directory
• Say in the plan file how it was generated, with this line right after the title:

  - Generated by `.claude/skills/slides.criticize/SKILL.md`
  

Wait for Approval

• Present the criticism to the user
• Wait for the user to select items to apply by index and give corrections
• Only then edit the slide deck
• Preserve formatting, speaker notes, and visual structure

Verification

• Make sure that the updated slides render correctly, e.g.,

  > gen_slides.py -i <FILE> --notes_to_pdf_args="--skip_action open_pdf"
  

• The plan file says that it was generated by .claude/skills/slides.criticize/SKILL.md