paulmil11 / decks

# Decks
Make slides by commenting on them. You leave a comment under a slide, your coding agent
(Claude Code or Codex) changes the deck, and it replies on the slide: what it did, a
question for you, or why it left something alone.
To try it, paste the prompt under Get started into Claude Code or Codex.
## Why I built this
I teach people consulting skills and a big part of my work is getting people to make
better and more compelling decks in PowerPoint. I made most of my slides in PowerPoint
too. Of course I did, I'm a former consultant.
With Astra and Opus 5.5, we've reached a tipping point. I think that bulky software like
Google Slides and PowerPoint increasingly doesn't make sense, especially for a solo
operator like me. Handling basic formatting is trivial now and you can play project
manager or partner, with the latest models as your Senior Associate. While I assume this
may continue to evolve and I'm sure Claude's slide project may eventually kick my ass,
for now, I am putting this out there as a simple harness that you can open in Claude or
Codex and work in iteratively.
Decks is built that way. You say what should change, your agent changes it, and it tells
you on the slide what it did and why. I have a tab, **Checks**, that offers some of the
tests I teach to teams and also still run on my own slides: five- and ten-second tests,
title tests, and horizontal and vertical flow. You can use AI as both a doer and a
teacher, so you learn the method and apply it at the same time, on your own work.
When I make slides now, this is my daily driver and harness. I'm not sure I'll ever align
boxes in PowerPoint again.
## A builder with a strong opinion
Decks is built on the ideas I teach at StrategyU, and the agent follows them every time it
writes or fixes a slide:
- **Answer first.** Lead with the recommendation, then the evidence. Build up to it only
 when the audience is skeptical.
- **Ghost deck first.** Write every title, in order, before building a single slide. It's
 the cheapest moment to fix the story. (Ghost decks)
- **Action titles.** Every title is a full sentence that says the point: "Q3 revenue grew
 22%, driven by enterprise expansion", not "Q3 Revenue".
 (Action titles)
- **Vertical flow.** The title matches the content: the body proves the title, and there's
 no takeaway box at the bottom.
 (The principles of flow)
- **Horizontal flow.** Read only the titles, in order, and they tell the whole story.
- **The five-second test.** For a slide you present: glance at it for five seconds, and
 the one point comes through.
- **The ten-second test.** For a slide people read: they can take it in within ten
 seconds. One point, a clear hierarchy, a chart that reads without study.
 (The ten-second test)
- **"So what?"** A slide can be easy to read and still say nothing. Every slide tells the
 audience what to think. (Pretty slide syndrome)
- **One idea per slide.** If it needs "and also", it's two slides.
- **Charts prove the title.** Bars, col