Write slides with an AI assistant

mdeck ships a skill, write-slides, that lets an AI coding assistant draft a complete deck from a short brief. It reads the mdeck reference docs, asks the installed mdeck command which layouts, themes and palettes the deck can use (including designs kept in the deck's extensions/ folder), writes the file, and runs mdeck check on the result.

The skill is written in the Agent Skills format, a SKILL.md file that Claude Code, OpenAI Codex and other assistants read directly. For tools with their own conventions, mdeck skill writes the same instructions in their format.

Install it#

In your terminal

mdeck skill                        # list the supported assistants
mdeck skill --install claude       # Claude Code, personal (~/.claude/skills/)
mdeck skill --install codex        # OpenAI Codex, personal (~/.codex/skills/)
mdeck skill --install cursor       # Cursor rule in this project (.cursor/rules/)
mdeck skill --install copilot      # GitHub Copilot prompt file (.github/prompts/)
mdeck skill --install gemini       # Gemini CLI command (.gemini/commands/)
mdeck skill --install claude codex --project   # into this project instead of your home folder
mdeck skill --print                # the skill as text, for any other tool

Run the command in the folder of the deck you are working on when installing project-level files. Re-run it after updating mdeck to pick up changes.

Use it#

Assistant	How to start
Claude Code	`/write-slides A 20-minute talk on design systems for frontend engineers`
Codex	Ask for slides; the skill is picked up by its description
Cursor	Mention `@write-slides` or ask for an mdeck deck
GitHub Copilot	Run the `write-slides` prompt from the prompt picker
Gemini CLI	`/write-slides A 20-minute talk on design systems`
Anything else	Paste the output of `mdeck skill --print` followed by your request

The assistant writes a .md file named after the topic, checks it, and tells you the commands to preview, present and share it. Review the notes and the pictures it asks for, then:

In your terminal

mdeck dev <deck>.md
mdeck build <deck>.md --share --self-contained -o <deck>.html

What the skill knows#

It carries a short quick reference of the file format so it can work even without the docs, finds the full reference docs in the repository or the installed package, and prefers the live answers from mdeck templates --json and mdeck extensions over its own memory.