social-carousel

Given source material or a topic, produce a full carousel script — cover hook, 6–10 content slides, recap, CTA — with a design note and image prompt per slide.

Context

Read social-context.md (also check .agents/social-context.md) before drafting. You need:

• Brand voice: vocabulary, capitalization habits, whether slides may joke
• Audience: expertise level, which determines how much a single slide can assume
• The Never list, if present: red lines that disqualify a slide or a caption

social-context.md does not carry visual identity, so ask the user directly for colors, type feel, and illustration-vs-photo — one question alongside the platform question in step 1.

If the file is missing, offer to run the social-context skill first — but do not block. Ask two or three quick questions inline (Instagram or LinkedIn? Who reads this? Any visual style words — minimal, bold, hand-drawn?) and proceed.

Workflow

1. Ask the platform first. Instagram (1080×1350 portrait, tap-through, big type) and LinkedIn (document/PDF, often landscape or square, denser text tolerated) are different media. Do not draft a generic script and relabel it. If the user already named the platform, skip ahead.
2. Extract one narrative arc from the source. A carousel carries exactly one argument: problem → tension → resolution, or claim → evidence → payoff. If the source contains three arguments, pick the strongest and say which two you dropped.
3. Write the cover slide. It is a hook, not a title: eight words or fewer of large text, optionally a small kicker line. "5 onboarding mistakes" is a title; "Your onboarding is losing users on day one" is a cover. The cover must work as a standalone feed image, because that is how most people will encounter it.
4. Outline the content slides before writing them. One idea per slide, in escalating order — strongest point second-to-last, never first. Instagram: 6–8 content slides. LinkedIn: 8–10 is fine; readers expect more substance in a document post. Show the outline as one line per slide and let the user cut or reorder before you invest in full drafts.
5. Draft each content slide at ≤25 words. Constraints that keep slides swipeable:
   • Self-contained: each slide parses without its neighbors, because screenshots travel alone.
   • Pull-through: end slides on tension or an open loop where the material allows it.
   • Front-load the slide's noun; no slide begins with "Also", "And", or "Another thing".
   • One number or one image concept per slide — a slide that needs both is two slides.
6. Write the recap slide. Compress the arc into 3–5 checklist lines the reader can screenshot. This is the most-saved slide; make it worth saving.
7. Write the CTA slide. Instagram: ask for a save or a share ("Save this for your next launch"), plus follow. LinkedIn: ask a discussion question that invites comments, plus follow. One ask primary, never three equal asks.
8. Attach a design note to every slide. Three parts, all concrete:
   • Layout — text position, alignment, margins ("headline top-third, left-aligned, generous bottom margin").
   • Visual metaphor — the one image or diagram that carries the idea ("iceberg with 'signup' above the waterline, 'activation' below").
   • Text placement — what is large, what is small, and the single emphasis word or number that gets the accent treatment. Keep every note executable by someone who never read the source: "left-aligned headline top-third, iceberg illustration lower-right, the phrase 'day one' in accent color".
9. Attach an image-generation prompt to every slide that a designer or image model can run as-is:
   • Subject and composition ("flat illustration of a doorway with a welcome mat, centered, seen straight-on")
   • Style and palette hint, consistent across all slides — one visual system, not ten
   • The explicit instruction to leave clear negative space where the slide text sits
10. Swipe-check the whole script. Read only the slide texts in order, ignoring the design notes. The argument must survive on copy alone; if it does not, fix the copy, not the visuals. Then check the reverse: would the visuals alone tell roughly the same story? Finally, check the full script and the caption against every row of the Quality bar and against the Never list — fix any slide or caption that fails a row or trips a red line.
11. Write the accompanying caption or post text last. Its first line is a second hook (do not repeat the cover verbatim); it adds one piece of context the slides omit, then hands off: "swipe through".

Quality bar

• Text on slides must be legible at thumbnail size — if a design note implies more than ~3 lines of large text, split the slide.
• No slide may require the previous slide to parse.
• Numbers, arrows, and simple diagrams beat stock-photo metaphors.
• One emphasis element per slide: a single accent word, number, or arrow — two emphases is zero emphases.
• Slide transitions earn the swipe: at least a third of content slides should end on tension or an open loop.
• Alt-text-friendly: every image prompt describes a concrete scene, not "abstract vibes".
• The recap slide is screenshot bait — checklist formatting, no new information, no cleverness.

Deliverable

Return, in order:

1. One line naming the platform, the narrative arc, and the slide count.
2. The script as a numbered list, one block per slide: Slide N — [role], then Text: (the exact copy), Design: (layout + metaphor + text placement), Image prompt: (ready to run as-is).
3. The post caption (Instagram) or post text (LinkedIn), hook line first.

Nothing else — end there.