Slide Authoring

Authoring open-slide pages

This repository configures slidesDir as ../slides. Throughout this skill, resolve every slides/... path as ../slides/... from the OpenSlide project directory. Global assets/ paths remain inside the OpenSlide project.

This skill is the technical reference for everything that happens inside slides/<id>/index.tsx. It does not own a workflow:

• create-slide owns "draft a new deck" — it asks the user scoping questions, then delegates the how to this skill.
• apply-comments owns "process inspector markers" — it finds markers and applies edits, but the edits themselves follow the rules here.
• current-slide resolves deictic references ("this page", "the slide I'm on") to a concrete slideId + pageIndex. Consult it first when the user references the current slide without naming it, then come back here for how to edit it.
• Any ad-hoc slide edit (manual tweak, one-off fix) should also consult this skill before touching the file.

When any of those paths reach the point of writing React code for a page, this is the source of truth. Do not duplicate the knowledge below into other skills — link here instead.

Primitive references

Each framework primitive has a full reference file under references/ in this skill — contract, worked examples, and its own anti-patterns. This file keeps only the always-on rules and a short summary per primitive. Read the relevant reference file before using a primitive on a page:

Hard rules

• Put the slide under slides/<kebab-case-id>/.
• Entry is slides/<id>/index.tsx. Images/videos/fonts go under slides/<id>/assets/.
• Do not touch package.json, open-slide.config.ts, or other slides.
• Do not add dependencies. Only react, @open-slide/core, and standard web APIs are available.
• A slide is one index.tsx plus assets/ — nothing else. Do not create sibling .tsx/.ts files (Card.tsx, components/, helpers.ts, etc.); helper components and constants go inside index.tsx. Do not create README.md or other prose files either.

File contract

// slides/<id>/index.tsx
import type { Page, SlideMeta } from '@open-slide/core';

const Cover: Page = () => <div>…</div>;
const Body: Page = () => <div>…</div>;

export const meta: SlideMeta = {
  title: 'My slide',
  createdAt: '2026-05-16T12:00:00Z',
};
export default [Cover, Body] satisfies Page[];

• export default is a non-empty array of zero-prop React components, one per page, in order.
• meta.title (optional) shows in the slide header. Default is the folder name.
• The slide id is the kebab-case folder name. Pick something short and descriptive (q2-roadmap, team-offsite-2026).
• meta.theme (optional) marks the slide as built from a theme under themes/. The id must match a <id>.md basename. Surfaces a back-link chip on the slide card and lists the slide on /themes/<id>. Omit if the slide isn't derived from a registered theme.
• meta.createdAt is an ISO 8601 string literal (e.g. '2026-05-16T12:00:00Z') set once when the slide is scaffolded. The home page uses it for the default "newest first" sort. Always include it on new slides — immediately before writing the file, run node -e "console.log(new Date().toISOString())" via Bash and paste the exact output as the value. Don't type a timestamp from memory — you will get the date or time wrong. Must be a plain string literal (no new Date(...) or imports in the slide itself) — the framework reads it via a regex at build time, not by evaluating the module.

Editing an existing slide

A finished slide commonly runs 1000–1800 lines. When you only need to touch one page, don't read the whole file — locate the page first, then read just that range:

grep -n ": Page = " slides/<id>/index.tsx

This lists every const Foo: Page = … declaration with its line number. Read the target page with Read using offset + limit (~150 lines is usually enough to capture one page plus its helper components). Read the whole file only when you need cross-page context (palette audit, reordering, design const tweaks).

Canvas

Every page renders into a fixed 1920 × 1080 canvas. The framework scales it; you design as if the viewport is literally 1920×1080.

• Use absolute pixel values for font-size, padding, positioning. No rem, no vw/vh, no % for type.
• The root element of each page should fill the canvas: width: '100%'; height: '100%'.
• Prefer inline style={{ … }}. Any CSS you load is global — scope classnames carefully.

Type scale (start here, adjust to taste)

Spacing

• Content padding: 100–160px from canvas edges. Never let text touch the edge.
• Line-height: 1.2 for headings, 1.5–1.7 for body.
• Breathing room between elements: 32–64px.

Vertical budget — content MUST fit 1080px

The canvas does not scroll. Anything past the 1080px bottom edge is silently cropped. Before writing JSX, do the math on paper and confirm the page fits. This is the #1 cause of broken slides — assume you will overflow unless you've checked.

Usable height = 1080 − top_padding − bottom_padding. With 120px padding on each side that's 840px. With 160px each side, 760px. Pick the padding first, then design within that budget.

Element height = font_size × line_height × number_of_lines. A bullet that wraps to 2 lines counts as 2 lines. Add the gap below it (32–64px) before summing the next element.

Worked example — single content page, 120px padding (budget = 840px):

Swap the heading to 120px or add a 6th bullet and you're over. Verify every page like this before you write it.

Page-level rules:

• One heading + body OR one heading + ≤5 short bullets. Not both blocks of body copy and a long bullet list.
• A bullet should fit on one line at the chosen font size. If it wraps, either shorten the copy or move it to its own page.
• Hero title pages (140–200px) carry a title + 1 subtitle + maybe an eyebrow — nothing else.
• Section headings (80–120px) need almost nothing else on the page.
• If you find yourself raising padding, shrinking type below the scale's lower bound, or tightening body line-height under 1.4 to make things fit — split into two pages instead. Splitting is always the right answer when the budget is tight.

Never use overflow: auto/scroll, negative margins, or transforms to hide overflow. The canvas is fixed; cropped content is gone.

Visual direction

Pick a coherent look and hold it across every page:

• Palette — 1 background, 1 primary text, 1 accent, 1 muted. Put bg/text/accent in the design const (see Design system below); extra colors like muted stay as plain consts.
• Typography — one display font + one body font. System stack unless the user specifies. Heavy weight for headlines (800–900), normal for body (400–500).
• Layout grid — pick a single content padding (e.g. 120px) and stick to it. Left-aligned content feels editorial; centered feels ceremonial.
• Aesthetic commitment — choose ONE: minimal, maximalist, editorial, retro, brutalist, soft/pastel, neon, paper/print. Don't mix.

If the frontend-design skill is available, consult it for deeper aesthetic guidance when the user wants something bold.

Webfonts

The default is a system font stack — prefer it. When a deck genuinely needs a webfont (a brand font, or CJK / Thai / Arabic where system coverage is poor), read references/webfonts.md first — loading the stylesheet inside a page component registers the whole @font-face set once per mounted page, and CJK families need subsetting.

Themes

If themes/<id>.md exists at the project root and the slide is meant to follow it, the theme file overrides the defaults in this skill — its palette, typography, layout padding, and Title/Footer components are authoritative. Read the theme file before applying anything else in this section.

Themes are produced by the create-theme skill and are pure documentation: copy the palette and the paste-ready Title / Footer / Eyebrow components straight into your slide. If the theme's frontmatter has mode: dark or mode: light, treat that as the slide's background mode (e.g. when picking which logo variant to import).

Design system (opt-in, per-slide)

A slide can declare typed design tokens at the top of index.tsx — export const design: DesignSystem = { palette, fonts, typeScale, radius } — and consume them via var(--osd-X) in inline styles. The framework injects the CSS variables at the canvas root, and the dev UI's Design panel can live-tweak them.

Default to using it. Every new slide should declare a design const so it stays tweakable from the panel after generation. Only fall back to plain palette constants for a one-off slide whose palette is intentionally locked (references/design-system.md covers the fallback).

references/design-system.md has the full token shape, the two consumption surfaces (var(--osd-X) vs direct design.X reads), Design panel behavior, and the format constraints the panel's AST writer requires. Read it before writing the const.

Starter template

import type { DesignSystem, Page, SlideMeta } from '@open-slide/core';

export const design: DesignSystem = {
  palette: { bg: '#0f172a', text: '#f8fafc', accent: '#fbbf24' },
  fonts: {
    display: 'system-ui, -apple-system, sans-serif',
    body: 'system-ui, -apple-system, sans-serif',
  },
  typeScale: { hero: 180, body: 40 },
  radius: 12,
};

// Extra colors / sizes outside the DesignSystem shape stay as plain consts.
const muted = '#94a3b8';

const fill = {
  width: '100%',
  height: '100%',
  fontFamily: 'var(--osd-font-body)',
} as const;

const Cover: Page = () => (
  <div
    style={{
      ...fill,
      background: 'var(--osd-bg)',
      color: 'var(--osd-text)',
      display: 'flex',
      flexDirection: 'column',
      justifyContent: 'center',
      padding: '0 160px',
    }}
  >
    <div style={{ fontSize: 28, color: 'var(--osd-accent)', letterSpacing: '0.2em' }}>
      CHAPTER 01
    </div>
    <h1
      style={{
        fontFamily: 'var(--osd-font-display)',
        fontSize: 'var(--osd-size-hero)',
        fontWeight: 900,
        margin: '32px 0',
        lineHeight: 1.05,
      }}
    >
      The Big Idea
    </h1>
    <p style={{ fontSize: 'var(--osd-size-body)', color: muted, maxWidth: 1200 }}>
      A short subtitle that explains what this slide is about.
    </p>
  </div>
);

const Content: Page = () => (
  <div style={{ ...fill, background: 'var(--osd-bg)', color: 'var(--osd-text)', padding: 120 }}>
    <h2 style={{ fontFamily: 'var(--osd-font-display)', fontSize: 80, fontWeight: 800, margin: 0 }}>
      Section heading
    </h2>
    <ul style={{ fontSize: 'var(--osd-size-body)', lineHeight: 1.6, marginTop: 64, paddingLeft: 48 }}>
      <li>One clear point per line</li>
      <li>Keep to 3–5 bullets</li>
      <li>Let the space breathe</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
);

export const meta: SlideMeta = {
  title: 'The Big Idea',
  createdAt: '2026-05-16T12:00:00Z',
};
export default [Cover, Content] satisfies Page[];

Assets

Slide-local assets live under slides/<id>/assets/ and are imported as ES modules (import hero from './assets/hero.jpg'). Global assets shared across decks (logos, avatars, recurring icons) live in the project root assets/ and are imported via the @assets alias. For a pure-text slide, don't create slides/<id>/assets/ at all.

references/assets.md covers import forms (module vs new URL(...)), the @assets alias, and how themes name asset paths.

Image placeholders

When a page genuinely needs a real image the user has to provide (product screenshot, team photo, chart from their data), leave a typed <ImagePlaceholder hint="…" /> from @open-slide/core instead of inventing a stand-in — the user replaces it via the Assets panel + inspector. Do not use placeholders for decoration or generic stock-photo filler; if type, layout, and color can carry the page, do that.

references/assets.md has the full usage rules, sizing guidance, and examples of when a placeholder is (and isn't) warranted.

Page numbers

If a footer shows the current page (03 / 12), read it from useSlidePageNumber() — never hardcode n / TOTAL. See references/page-numbers.md for the hook's contract and where it can be called.

Stepped reveals (<Steps> / <Step>)

Reveal a page one beat at a time: wrap deferred parts in <Step>, the group in <Steps>; each → reveals the next step. Use it when the order of ideas is the point — not reflexively on every page. Two rules are load-bearing: <Step> must be a direct child of <Steps> (otherwise it silently renders fully revealed), and a page must still read as complete when jumped to via the overview grid (jumping in shows all steps revealed).

Read references/steps.md before authoring a stepped page — it covers composition order across multiple <Steps> blocks, the "headline always, body in turn" pattern, and entry-direction behavior. If slides/build-on-reveal/ exists in this project, it is the canonical worked example.

Page transitions

The framework can run an enter/exit animation between slide changes, declared as a SlideTransition (module-level default, per-page override; the incoming page wins). There's no default — pages snap unless you opt in, and snap-swap is a perfectly tasteful default. If you do opt in: one motion DNA per deck, 140–280 ms, magnitude under 12 px / 3% scale, opacity always part of it.

Read references/transitions.md before declaring one — it has the full type contract, design principles, a six-member "tasteful family" of ready-to-use transitions sharing one DNA, direction-aware keyframes, and the anti-pattern list.

Morph transitions

When the same visual object exists on two adjacent pages, wrap it on both pages in MorphElement with the same id and enable morph on the incoming page's transition — position, size, radius, and colors interpolate in one continuous move (Keynote's "Magic Move"). Morph is for state continuity (a toggle sliding, a card expanding, a box joining a row); don't morph decoration.

Read references/morph.md before writing one — the seven rules there (opacity-only enter/exit, deterministic geometry, no transform on the morph node, useIsActivePage() gating, …) were each earned on a real deck, and violating any of them produces a visibly broken morph.

Repeated elements: component, not map

When a page has visually repeated items — cards, logo rows, gallery tiles, list rows, step indicators — define a small component and instantiate it once per item. Do not render the group with array.map over a data array.

Define the component in the same index.tsx, alongside the Page components. Never split it into a sibling file like Card.tsx — a slide is always a single index.tsx plus its assets/.

// ✅ Each card is its own JSX node — inspector edits one at a time.
const Card = ({ src, label }: { src: string; label: string }) => (
  <div style={{ display: 'flex', flexDirection: 'column', gap: 16 }}>
    <img src={src} style={{ width: 320, height: 320, objectFit: 'cover', borderRadius: 12 }} />
    <p style={{ fontSize: 32 }}>{label}</p>
  </div>
);

<div style={{ display: 'grid', gridTemplateColumns: 'repeat(3, 1fr)', gap: 64 }}>
  <Card src={alpha} label="Alpha" />
  <Card src={beta}  label="Beta"  />
  <Card src={gamma} label="Gamma" />
</div>

// ❌ One shared template — replacing the image or text in the inspector
//    changes every rendered card at once.
const items = [
  { src: alpha, label: 'Alpha' },
  { src: beta,  label: 'Beta'  },
  { src: gamma, label: 'Gamma' },
];
items.map((item) => (
  <div>
    <img src={item.src} />
    <p>{item.label}</p>
  </div>
));

The inspector edits source JSX in place. A map body is one source location shared by every rendered instance, so when the user replaces an image or tweaks a label there, every card mutates together. Explicit instances give each card its own JSX node and its own props — the unit the inspector can target.

The component definition stays the single source of truth for layout/styling (change it once → all cards update). Only the per-instance data — src, label, accent color — lives at the call site.

This applies whenever the visual element repeats, not whenever the data does. Pure-text lists (<ul><li> bullets) are fine: each <li> is already its own JSX node, so plain literal markup is the correct shape — no need to wrap them in a component.

Runtime behavior you get for free

• Home page lists every folder under slides/.
• Clicking a slide shows a left thumbnail rail, main page, prev/next, page counter.
• Arrow keys / PageUp / PageDown navigate. F enters fullscreen play mode.
• In play mode: Space/→ next, ← prev, Esc exit.
• Hot reload: edit index.tsx and the browser updates live.

Self-review before finishing

• slides/<id>/index.tsx export defaults a non-empty Page[].
• Every page's root fills 100% × 100%.
• Content lives inside padding (no text kisses the edge).
• For every page, sum (font_size × line_height × lines) + gaps + 2×padding ≤ 1080px. If close, split the page. No overflow: auto escape hatches.
• No bullet wraps to a second line at the chosen font size.
• One coherent visual direction across every page (palette + type scale).
• Slide declares a top-level export const design: DesignSystem = { … } and references the values via var(--osd-X) (use design.X only when you need a JS number for arithmetic). Only omit the design const for a one-off slide whose palette is intentionally locked.
• One idea per page.
• Visually repeated elements (cards, tiles, logo rows) are rendered as explicit <Component /> instances, not via array.map over a data list.
• All imported assets exist on disk — slide-local under slides/<id>/assets/, or global under assets/ (imported via @assets/...).
• Every <ImagePlaceholder> corresponds to a real image the user must supply — not decorative filler. If it could be replaced by typography or layout, it should be.
• If a page uses <Steps>/<Step>, every <Step> is a direct child of a <Steps>, and the page still reads as complete when jumped to via the overview grid (entering forward builds up; jumping in shows it fully revealed).
• If a SlideTransition is declared, every page sits in one family — same duration band (140–280 ms), same easing pair, same out-then-in stagger, magnitude under 12 px / 3%. No six-different-vocabularies decks. When in doubt, omit transitions entirely. (Pages that opt into morph may exceed the band to match the morph — see references/morph.md.)
• If a transition opts into morph: every morph id is unique per page and stable across the pair, morph geometry is pixel-constant (never measured after mount), no transform sits on the morph node, and entrance animations are gated behind useIsActivePage().
• Nothing outside slides/<id>/ was edited.

Anti-patterns

• ❌ Walls of text. If a page has more than ~40 words, split it.
• ❌ Using the full canvas for body copy. Respect 100–160px padding.
• ❌ Overflowing 1080px vertically. Cropped content is invisible — split the page.
• ❌ overflow: auto / overflow: scroll / overflow: hidden to "hide" too much content. The canvas doesn't scroll; you've just hidden the bug.
• ❌ Shrinking type below the scale's lower bound, or padding below 100px, to cram more in. Split instead.
• ❌ Bullets that wrap to a second line — either shorten or move to its own page.
• ❌ Body type under 28px — unreadable on a projector.
• ❌ Inconsistent palette across pages.
• ❌ Installing packages. Only react, @open-slide/core, and standard web APIs are available.
• ❌ Writing CSS to a shared file. Inline styles or scoped classnames only.
• ❌ Creating README.md or other prose files inside the slide folder.
• ❌ Editing package.json, open-slide.config.ts, or other slides.
• ❌ Using a primitive without reading its reference file — each references/*.md carries the primitive's own anti-pattern list (placeholder misuse, transition vocabulary, <Step> nesting, morph geometry).