Pitch deck

This skill builds the files a jury reads and looks at: the 16:9 deck, the A4 concept brief or proposal, the PPTX a portal demands, and the organiser-format cut. It treats them as code: one source in the project, one render command, gates for page count, size and fonts, and a QA loop that turns every page into a PNG and looks at it before anything is uploaded. The sibling skill idea-round decides what a submission says (the spine, the numbers, the form answers); this skill decides how it is built, exported and checked. Install the full set with npx skills add SaudSatopay/bullseye if a sibling is missing.

Field note (MuleShot · BOI × IIT Hyderabad 2026): the idea round accepted one PDF of at most 1 MB. The proposal was a single HTML file rendered by headless Chrome, font-subset from 1060 KB to 603 KB, and checked after every pass by rendering changed pages, zoom crops and footer zones to PNG. Eleven pages went in at 698 KB with no clipped line.

Inputs

• BULLSEYE.md ## Contract: each deliverable with its format, page or slide count, size limit, template, naming rule, font rule, anonymity rule and deadline, quoted from the rules. If a field is missing, read the rules page again; ask the user only when the rules do not say.
• ## Thesis (the one-liner and the signature moment) and ## Claims (where facts.json and CLAIMS.md live; the sibling prove-it owns them).
• The content from idea-round (its spine, concept-note copy and form answers), the product's design tokens (DESIGN.md or the token file), real screenshots of the build, and the organiser's template file when one is mandatory.

Procedure

1. Choose the route before designing

Decide the format, the page size (16:9 is 338.667mm 190.5mm, 13.333 x 7.5 in; A4 is 210mm 297mm), the size limit, the font policy (embedded web fonts, embedded by PowerPoint, or system-safe), the count and the file name before the first layout decision.

Gate: one line under ## Decisions names the route and why, with the format, size limit and font policy. For route C, python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/pptx_kit.py" inspect template.pptx has been run and read.

Field note (DhanDrishti · NABARD Hackathon @ GFF 2026): the deck was built in pptxgenjs, rebuilt the same day as HTML to PDF because that looked better, and then squeezed under the portal's 10 MB cap. Choosing the route and reading the limit first is one build instead of three.

2. Set the design system

Reuse the product's tokens so the brand carries from app to deck, banner, OG image and video. Then apply the deck rules (depth in references/deck-design.md):

• one dark ground tinted to the domain, plus one light paper page type for rhythm (documents meant for print go light);
• three type roles: condensed display caps, a body sans or serif, and mono for every number, label, chip and footer, with tabular figures; static font files only, because a variable web font prints as Type3;
• colour is meaning, written down next to the tokens (accent is the brand; ok, warn, crit and model are status only), and tokens are named by role, never by hue;
• one motif taken from the product, and engineering furniture: a document id and revision on the cover, NN / TT on every page, a product and event footer, kickers 0N · NAME;
• real photographs on every deck, at least three: the place, the problem and the people, each credited on the image with the grade baked into the JPEG (sources, licences and placement in references/deck-design.md, Photos); diagrams as inline SVG or native shapes, and product screens as real screenshots.

Gate: the token block uses role names and carries the colour-meaning table; the fonts are static and the symbols the copy uses exist in them; the photographs are chosen, their licences read and their credits written into photo-credits.json.

3. Build from the starter

Copy the starter into the project's deck/ folder and replace the sample content, keeping the grammar. VialWatch in the starters is a fictional product; every value in them is invented.

• One .page per slide or page, real copy, no lorem. The content and the order of the 14 parts come from idea-round (../idea-round/references/pitch-skeleton.md).
• Numbers come from data: write {{fact:eval.recall}} in the HTML and render with --facts facts.json, or pass --facts to deck.pptx.mjs. A number typed by hand drifts.
• Every number carries its label (MEASURED, SOURCED, SIMULATED, PROJECTED, TARGET, ILLUSTRATIVE) and every feature its status chip (IMPLEMENTED, PROTOTYPED, SIMULATED, FUTURE), at the level the build can honestly claim today.
• PPTX routes: speaker notes on every slide (deck.pptx.mjs refuses to build without them; pptx_kit.set_notes; notes.json for route D).

Gate: every number on every page has a label, every photo slot (data-photo-slot) holds a real photograph (figure.photo with its credit chip), and every placeholder left is one the team still has to fill (team names, contacts, sources).

4. Render

node "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/render-pdf.mjs" deck/deck.html --out deck/qa/Deck-qa.pdf --expect-pages 14 --qa

Other agents: run the same script from this skill's folder (and use python3 where python is not Python 3). The script finds Chrome, Edge or Chromium (CHROME_PATH, standard installs, then Playwright's cache), passes a full file:/// URL, prints into a space-free temp folder with a fresh profile and a virtual-time budget, then copies the PDF out and compares its page count with the HTML's .page count. Route B: node deck/deck.pptx.mjs --out deck/out/Deck.pptx. Route C: python deck/fill_template.py. Route D renders A first.

Gate: the page count matches; no spilled page.

5. Finalize

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/finalize-pdf.py" deck/out/Deck.pdf --max-mb 10 --expect-fonts "Barlow,Plex"

Subsets the fonts (Chrome embeds every web font whole), garbage-collects, deflates, replaces the file and prints Deck.pdf · 14 pages · 395 KB · OK <10 MB, the embedded fonts and the metadata. Exit 1 when over the limit or when an expected face is missing (a web font that never loaded).

Gate: OK under the limit, the expected fonts present, the title and author fields what the round allows (--title, --strip-metadata for anonymous rounds).

6. QA loop: render, look, fix, repeat

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/qa-pdf.py" deck/qa/Deck-qa.pdf --sheet --bottoms --glyphs "₹×≥≤" --tells
python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/qa-pdf.py" deck/qa/Deck-qa.pdf --pages 5,9 --crop 5:0.30-0.70 --zoom 3

Open every PNG it lists and look: the contact sheet first, the stitched footer strip, then changed pages and 3× crops of small type, chart labels and edges. Fix in the source and render again. The in-page probe stamps any page with cut text, text below the frame or on the footer, overlapping text or a wrong page total; --glyphs names the face that drew each symbol; --tells fails on visible em dashes and warns on hype words. The checklist of what to look for is in references/qa.md.

PPTX routes: python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/pptx_kit.py" check deck/out/Deck.pptx --require-notes (negative extents, off-slide shapes, empty placeholders, notes, embedded fonts). On Windows with PowerPoint run the overflow check and the PNG render from references/powerpoint-com.md and look at every slide; with LibreOffice convert to PDF and use qa-pdf.py; with neither, use route D or render on another machine.

Gate: the probe is silent, no glyph falls back, the tells pass, and every page has been looked at once after the last change. Then render the deliverable without --qa, with --strict (fails on any {{placeholder}} left, an empty photo slot, or fewer real, credited photos than the deck requires), finalize it and run qa-pdf.py --sheet --tells on that exact file.

7. Cut, name and keep the generator

Build the organiser's format as its own file from the same source: finalize-pdf.py deck/out/Deck.pdf --select 2,4,14-15 --out deck/out/<Name>.pdf, pages-to-pptx.py --pages ... for a PPTX, or a separate HTML with the same stylesheet when the cut needs different slides. Name it exactly as the rules say (alphanumeric only when they say so), check the size, embed fonts when the rules ask (embed-and-export.ps1, then pptx_kit.py check --require-embedded-fonts), and clear identity metadata for anonymous rounds.

Keep every generator and its inputs in the project's deck/ folder (HTML, scripts, facts.json path, graded photos, photo-credits.json, notes), with a short deck/README.md holding the rebuild commands and what every number is. Whether deck/ sources, speaker-note files and QA renders are committed follows the process-file policy in BULLSEYE.md (private by default: gitignored, kept on disk); the deliverables themselves are submitted, not hidden.

Gate: the cut passes steps 4 to 6; the rebuild commands run from a clean checkout.

Field note (ORCA · Vibeathon 2026): the Stage 2 template filler read its template copy and diagram images from a session scratchpad, and the image-per-slide PPTX has no builder in the project folder. FLOODLIGHT's Round 2 deck script at MUSA CodeX also sat in a scratchpad, and SURYA's folder holds the finished deck but no generator. A deck you cannot rebuild cannot be fixed at 23:40.

8. Record

In BULLSEYE.md:

• ## Submission (owned by submission-pack; add a line per artifact, do not restructure it): - [x] Deck PDF · deck/out/<Name>.pdf · 14 pp · 0.4 MB of 10 MB · fonts subset · QA <date>, probe silent.
• ## Decisions: the route and font policy, with the reason.
• ## Log, newest first:

### ▶ STATUS · deck pass · {{YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM TZ}}
- Changed: {{pages and what changed on each}}
- Verified: probe silent, glyphs {{list}} in design faces, tells clean, every page looked at
- Numbers: {{pages}} pages, {{size}} of {{limit}} MB, fonts {{faces}}
- Next: {{the cut, or the next pass}}

Outputs

In the user's project: deck/deck.html or deck/brief.html (route A), deck/deck.pptx.mjs (B), deck/fill_template.py (C), deck/notes.json (D), deck/assets/ with graded photos and photo-credits.json, deck/out/ with the deliverables under the organiser's names, deck/qa/ for QA renders (gitignore it), and deck/README.md with rebuild commands. In BULLSEYE.md: lines in ## Submission, ## Decisions and a ## Log block.

Rules

• Choose the route, size limit and font policy before designing; never discover a limit at upload time.
• Every number on a page carries its label; every overlay and concept screen says ILLUSTRATIVE; nothing unmeasured is shown as measured. Never invent a source, a customer or a result.
• No visible em dashes, hype words or exclamation marks in anything a judge reads (--tells).
• No CSS or SVG filter, no blurred box-shadow or text-shadow, no element opacity or mix-blend-mode in print: rgba fills and fill-opacity instead.
• Static fonts only for PDFs; check every symbol you use with --glyphs.
• Real photographs in every deck, at least three, each credited on the image; never AI-generated imagery or a stock photo that implies what you do not have. Only a photo of something that does not exist yet stays a labelled placeholder.
• Never ship a placeholder: the final render uses --strict.
• PPTX files pass pptx_kit.py check before anyone opens them; PowerPoint automation never quits a PowerPoint that has the user's documents open.
• Keep generators and inputs in the project, and one source of content for every format, so the deck, brief, form answers and README carry the same numbers.

Reference map

Product UI taste and the banned looks live in the sibling missile skill: design-rules.md.