From petems-skills
Build conference talk outlines and MARP slides using the Story Circle framework, tuned to Peter's DevOps/infra community voice. Use when the user wants to structure a tech talk, create presentation slides, or needs help organising talk ideas.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/petems-skills:conference-talk-builder-petemsThis skill is limited to the following tools:
The summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
> Based on the excellent content creation skills by Nick Nisi.
Based on the excellent content creation skills by Nick Nisi. Original: https://github.com/nicknisi/claude-plugins/tree/main/plugins/content This is my own personal take on that flow, tuned to my voice and preferences.
Build compelling conference talk outlines and MARP Markdown slides using the Story Circle narrative framework, with Peter's DevOps/infra community perspective baked in.
Write slides and speaker notes in a conversational, slightly informal British English tone. Think "experienced engineer chatting at a pub after the meetup" rather than "corporate keynote."
Follow these steps in order when building a conference talk:
Start with whatever the user gives you, even if it's just a topic and a vague idea. Ask follow-up questions to fill gaps, but don't front-load a big questionnaire. Tease out the story through conversation.
Key things to establish (over the course of conversation, not all at once):
The goal is not to become an expert, but to arm the speaker with enough context and supporting detail to tell a credible, grounded story. If the user already has deep experience with the topic, keep research light (focus on recent developments and what the audience might already know). If they're exploring a newer area, spend more time here.
Before doing any research, inventory what's available. Check every MCP server currently connected and every built-in tool you have access to.
Always available (built-in):
Recommended MCP servers: Read references/recommended-mcps.md for a table of
useful MCP servers for research (search engines, doc lookup, academic papers, image
search, etc.). If any are missing and would be particularly useful for this talk's
topic, mention them to the user as options worth adding.
Workplace knowledge tools (Confluence, Glean, Notion, Google Drive, Slack, etc.): These can be goldmines for work-related talks, but raise a flag before using them. Internal docs may contain private roadmap items, unreleased product details, or internal-only metrics that shouldn't appear in a public talk. Always ask the user before searching these, and flag anything that looks potentially sensitive.
Other connected MCPs: Scan all other connected MCP servers. If you spot servers for YouTube, Reddit, Twitter/X, Hacker News, or any domain-specific tool relevant to the talk topic, ask the user if they'd like to include them in the research sweep.
MCP count guardrail: Limit active research to 5 MCP servers total (including WebFetch and WebSearch). If you're about to exceed that, pause and check with the user. Too many tools at once gets unwieldy: responses slow down, context gets noisy, and it's harder to track what came from where. Ask the user to pick the 2-3 most relevant beyond the built-in pair.
Fallback: If no web tools are available at all, rely on training knowledge and ask the user to upload reference materials (PDFs, bookmarks, notes, etc.).
Generate 3-5 research angles tailored to the topic type. Examples by category:
Present the angles to the user for confirmation or adjustment before proceeding.
For each confirmed research angle:
allowed_domains: ["youtube.com", "speakerdeck.com", "slideshare.net"]allowed_domains: ["news.ycombinator.com", "reddit.com", "lobste.rs"]Fetch and read the most promising 5-10 sources from the sweep. For each, extract:
Compile everything into research_brief.md with these sections:
Save the brief and present it to the user before moving to the outline. This gives them a chance to correct misunderstandings, flag what's most relevant, or say "actually, skip that angle."
Source slide imagery separately during the slide-building stage (Step 5), not during
research. Use Unsplash to find thematic images with orientation: "landscape" for
widescreen slides. Always use get_photo_attribution and include the credit on a
references slide. Only do this if the user wants images; many DevOps talks are
code/text-heavy and that's fine.
Load references/story-circle.md to understand the eight-step narrative structure.
The framework maps tech talks to:
Structure the talk using the eight Story Circle steps:
Map the user's content to these steps. Show this outline to the user and refine based on feedback.
Read references/marp-syntax.md for Markdown formatting rules and references/slide-design-golden-rules.md for visual design principles (hierarchy, contrast, typography, colour).
Save the slide deck to <talk-title-slug>.md in the current directory. Ask the user if they want it somewhere else.
Create slides that:
marp: true, theme: default, paginate: true, size: 16:9)<style> block from the syntax reference for base styles and section colour classes--- to separate slides<!-- _class: lead part-NAME --> for section dividers, mapped to Story Circle groups<!-- header: "**Active** > Other > Other" --> for breadcrumb navigation<!-- speaker notes here --> HTML comments for speaker notesStructure the slide deck:
<!-- _class: lead title-slide -->)After generating the .md file, offer to export:
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest --no-stdin <talk-title-slug>.md -o <talk-title-slug>.html
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest --no-stdin <talk-title-slug>.md -o <talk-title-slug>.pptx
Not every talk fits all 8 steps neatly. Use the Story Circle as a guide, not a straitjacket.
After showing the slides:
references/ai-slop-checklist.md. Scan slides and speaker
notes for AI vocabulary clusters, inflated significance, and formatting tells.
Fix anything that reads robotic before asking for human feedback.Tell a Story: You don't need to be an expert. Focus on how you approached a problem and solved it. Be honest about the bits that went wrong (that's where the best stories live).
Keep It Readable: Break code across slides. Use syntax highlighting. Test on bad projectors (consider light themes).
Engage the Audience: Use humour where appropriate. Ask questions. Make eye contact. If you've got a tangent that connects to the topic, let it breathe a bit.
Make Follow-up Easy: Include a memorable URL or QR code on the final slide linking to resources.
references/story-circle.md - Eight-step Story Circle framework with examples. Read this first to understand the narrative structure.references/marp-syntax.md - Complete MARP Markdown syntax reference. Read this when generating slides.references/slide-design-golden-rules.md - Visual design principles (hierarchy, contrast, typography, colour, whitespace). Read alongside marp-syntax.md when building slides to make them look good, not just syntactically correct.references/recommended-mcps.md - Table of recommended MCP servers for research. Read during Step 2a (Tool Inventory) to check what's available and suggest additions.references/ai-slop-checklist.md - AI writing tells checklist. Read during Step 6 (Refine and Iterate) to catch robotic phrasing in slides and speaker notes.User: "I want to create a talk about migrating from Puppet to Ansible"
references/story-circle.mdreferences/marp-syntax.mdGuides creation, editing, and verification of skills for AI coding agents using test-driven development with subagent scenarios. Use when authoring or debugging skills.
npx claudepluginhub petems/petems-skills --plugin blog-post-writer-petems