Beamer Deck

Beamer Deck Skill

Generate academic Beamer presentations with original themes, rhetoric-driven structure, and multi-agent review. Internalises Scott Cunningham's rhetoric framework and implements an adversarial review workflow.

Purpose

Create polished, zero-warning Beamer decks for academic contexts: seminars, conference talks, teaching lectures, and working decks for coauthors. Every deck gets a custom theme, assertion-driven titles, and parallel review by rhetoric and graphics sub-agents.

NOT for project status updates — use project-deck for those.

When to Use

• Academic seminar presentations
• Conference talks (15–45 min)
• Teaching lectures (undergraduate or PhD)
• Working decks for coauthors or supervisors
• Any presentation that needs rhetoric discipline and visual quality

Critical Rules

1. Build artifacts go to out/, PDF stays in the source directory. Use the latex pre-flight to install the fail-closed canonical .latexmkrc; never hand-write a partial config or copy block. Use latex for compilation and engine resolution.
2. Python: Always use uv run python. Never bare python, python3, pip, or pip3.
3. Fix ALL warnings. Overfull hbox, underfull hbox, overfull vbox, underfull vbox — no matter how small. Parse the .log file. Recompile until clean.
4. Titles are assertions, not labels. "Distance increases abortion rates" — not "Results". Every frame title states a claim.
5. One idea per slide. Not a guideline. A law. If a slide has two ideas, split it.
6. Use the unified template. Always use \usepackage[<institution>]{user-beamer} from templates/beamer/. Options: preset-a, preset-b, preset-c, preset-d, plain. Never use default Beamer themes (Warsaw, Madrid, etc.) as-is, and never create one-off preambles. See [templates/beamer/README.md] for available custom commands and how to add institutions.
7. Code-first figures. Generate figures via R or Python scripts before inserting. Never use placeholder images. Always save the script alongside the figures — never generate a figure without preserving the code that created it.
8. If a .bib file is used, validate it. Cross-reference all \cite{} keys against the bibliography file. See bib-validate for the full protocol.
9. Never define parameterized TikZ styles inside a frame. # inside a Beamer frame body is consumed by the frame parser before TikZ sees it, producing Illegal parameter number errors that cascade and resist all downstream fixes. Define ALL \tikzset{...} and .style={..., #1} entries in the preamble; use them inside frames. See ../shared/tikz-rules.md Rule 11.

Rhetoric Principles

Full framework (Three Laws, MB/MC, Aristotelian Triad, Narrative Arc, Pyramid Principle, Devil's Advocate): ../shared/rhetoric-principles.md

Scott's original essay: resources/academics/scott-cunningham/MixtapeTools/presentations/rhetoric_of_decks.md

Quality Scoring

Apply numeric quality scoring using the shared framework and skill-specific rubric:

• Framework: ../shared/quality-scoring.md — severity tiers, thresholds, verdict rules
• Rubric: references/quality-rubric.md — issue-to-deduction mappings for this skill

Start at 100, deduct per issue found, apply verdict. Compute the score in Phase 7 and report it in the final output.

Context-Specific Guidance

See ../shared/rhetoric-principles.md for the full Aristotelian Triad framework. Context-specific Ethos/Pathos/Logos balance and adjustments are applied in Phase 2 based on audience type (academic seminar, conference talk, teaching lecture, working deck).

Workflow: 7 Phases

You (orchestrator)
├── Phase 1: Gather context        (direct)
├── Phase 2: Design structure       (direct)
├── Phase 3: Build deck             (direct)
├── Phase 4: Fix all warnings       (direct)
├── Phase 5: Rhetoric review        (sub-agent — Explore)
├── Phase 6: Graphics review        (sub-agent — Explore)  ← parallel with Phase 5
└── Phase 7: Apply & finalise       (direct)

Phase 1: Gather Context (Direct)

Read project files, content sources, and audience brief. Ask the user clarifying questions:

• Audience: Who is this for? (seminar, conference, teaching, coauthors)
• Duration: How long is the talk?
• Content source: Paper draft? Notes? Existing slides? Code output?
• Special requirements: Specific figures, institutional branding, language?

Check for existing .bib files in the project. If citations are needed, note this for Phase 3.

Phase 2: Design Structure (Direct)

1. Choose rhetoric balance based on audience (see table above)
2. Outline slide sequence with assertion titles — write each title as a claim
3. Plan narrative arc — consult docs/reference/talk-design.md for format-specific arcs (empirical, structural, theory, descriptive) and audience calibration
4. Choose institution option for user-beamer — colours and fonts are set by the template
5. Identify figures needed — which need to be generated via code?

Present the outline to the user for approval before building.

Phase 3: Build Deck (Direct)

1. Generate figures first — run R/Python scripts, save to figures/
2. Write .tex file using the unified template: \documentclass[aspectratio=169,11pt]{beamer} + \usepackage[university]{user-beamer} (or other institution option). Use \fbinstitute and \fbemail for metadata. Custom commands: \contribcard, \phasecircle, \accentbox, \highlightbox, standoutframe environment.
3. Use 16:9 aspect ratio (already in the documentclass above)
4. Install the canonical .latexmkrc through the latex pre-flight if it is missing; classify any divergent existing config before migration
5. Compile using latex — this handles missing packages, font conflicts, citation key mismatches, and stale cache automatically
6. If using citations: add \addbibresource{references.bib} or \bibliography{} as appropriate