marp-presentation

name	marp-presentation
description	Create Marp markdown presentations through a guided workflow. Asks about audience and source material, picks the right theme, and builds the slides. Self-contained — bundles three custom themes and handles project setup. Triggers on: presentation, slideshow, slides, Marp, deck, talk, or any request to turn notes/data into a presentation.
user-invocable	true
argument-hint	[topic or path to source material]

Marp Presentation Skill

Create polished markdown-based slide decks using Marp. This skill is self-contained — it bundles three custom themes and handles all setup. Everything stays in plain text and is version-controllable.

When to activate

• User asks to make a presentation, slideshow, slide deck, or talk
• User wants to turn notes, data, or ideas into slides
• User mentions Marp
• User says something like "let's make a presentation about X"

---

Step 0: Project setup

Before doing anything else, silently ensure the working directory is ready to build Marp presentations.

Install marp-cli if needed

Check if @marp-team/marp-cli is available:

npx @marp-team/marp-cli --version 2>/dev/null

If not available, install it:

npm init -y 2>/dev/null; npm install @marp-team/marp-cli

Install themes

The three theme CSS files are bundled in this skill's references/ directory. Copy them into the working directory:

mkdir -p themes

Then read each theme file from this skill's references and write it to themes/:

• references/uofg.css → themes/uofg.css
• references/uofg-creative.css → themes/uofg-creative.css
• references/personal.css → themes/personal.css

Only copy if themes/ doesn't already contain them — the user may have customised their local copies.

Create presentations directory

mkdir -p presentations

---

Step 1: Understand the presentation

If the user hasn't already explained what they need, ask these questions. Skip any that are already obvious from context. Ask them all at once — don't drip-feed.

What to ask

Topic & purpose:

What's this presentation about, and what's the goal? (inform, persuade, teach, update, etc.)

Audience:

Who will be watching? This determines which theme we use:

• Internal UofG / institutional → uofg theme (clean, brand-compliant, Noto Sans, university blues)
• Mixed audience or external with UofG connection → uofg-creative theme (UofG palette but with Literata serif headings, warmer surfaces, more visual personality)
• Personal, casual, or non-UofG → personal theme (dark warm palette, Bricolage Grotesque headings, terracotta accents)

Source material:

Do you have existing material to work from? For example:

• Obsidian/markdown notes (give me the file paths or vault location)
• A CSV or spreadsheet (I'll turn the data into tables and charts)
• A document, PDF, or web page
• Bullet points or an outline
• Just a topic — I'll help structure it from scratch

You can point me at multiple sources. I'll read everything and synthesise.

Length & format:

Roughly how many slides? A 10-minute talk is typically 10–15 slides. A lightning talk is 5–8. A workshop deck might be 30+. If you're unsure, I'll aim for 12–15.

What NOT to ask

Don't ask about fonts, colours, CSS, or technical Marp details. The themes handle all of that. The user just needs to think about content and audience.

---

Step 2: Gather source material

Based on what the user said, read and process their source material.

Obsidian / Markdown notes

• Read the files the user points to
• Look for structure: headings, bullet points, links between notes
• Identify the narrative arc — what order should things appear in?
• Pull out key quotes, data points, and examples

CSV / Spreadsheet data

• Read the file
• Identify which columns and rows are most relevant
• Decide what belongs in tables vs what should be summarised as bullet points or key figures
• Keep tables concise — slides aren't spreadsheets. Max 5–6 rows per table, 4 columns. If there's more data, pick the most impactful subset and note what was left out

Documents / PDFs

• Read and extract the key points
• Identify the structure and main arguments
• Pull out quotable lines for blockquote slides

URLs / web pages

• Fetch and read the content
• Extract relevant information
• Credit the source in the slide footer or notes

No source material

• Work with the user to build an outline
• Ask what 3–5 key points they want the audience to take away
• Suggest a structure (problem → solution → evidence → next steps, or similar)

---

Step 3: Build the presentation

File setup

Create the markdown file at an appropriate location. If the user doesn't specify, use presentations/YYYY-MM-DD-topic-slug.md.

Frontmatter

---
marp: true
theme: <chosen-theme>
paginate: true
header: '<contextual header>'
footer: '<contextual footer>'
---

Choose appropriate header/footer text. For UofG themes, the header might be the department or project name. For personal, it might be the presenter's name or nothing at all.

Slide structure principles

Open strong. The title slide should make the audience curious, not just state the topic. A question, a surprising number, or a bold claim works better than "Quarterly Update Q3".

One idea per slide. If you're tempted to put two things on a slide, make two slides. Slides are free.

Vary the rhythm. Don't use the same layout for every slide. Mix:

• Text slides (bullet points, short paragraphs)
• Data slides (tables, key figures)
• Quote slides (blockquotes — good for breaking up dense sections)
• Divider slides (<!-- _class: divider --> — for section breaks)
• Lead slides (<!-- _class: lead --> — for title and closing)
• Image slides (background images with ![bg](path))
• Two-column slides (<!-- _class: cols -->)

Keep text short. Slides support the speaker, they don't replace the speaker. If a slide has more than ~40 words of body text, it's too much. Move detail to speaker notes (using HTML comments below the slide content).

End with a clear call to action or takeaway. Not just "Thanks / Questions?" but what should the audience do or remember?

Slide classes reference

These CSS classes are available in all three themes:

Directive	Effect
<!-- _class: lead -->	Title/closing slides — large heading, themed background
<!-- _class: invert -->	Inverted colour scheme (UofG themes only)
<!-- _class: divider -->	Section divider — heading only, subtle background
<!-- _class: cols -->	Two-column layout (content splits at the heading)
<!-- _class: light -->	Light background variant (personal theme only)
<!-- _class: accent -->	Terracotta background for impact (personal theme only)
<!-- _class: highlight -->	Gold heading on navy for key takeaways (uofg-creative only)

Code blocks

For technical presentations, use fenced code blocks with language identifiers. The themes have custom syntax highlighting tuned for readability on their dark code block backgrounds.

Tables

Keep tables simple. The themes style them with clean headers and no row striping. Don't cram too much data in — summarise instead.

Speaker notes

Add speaker notes for anything the presenter needs to say but shouldn't be on the slide:

<!--
This is where you'd explain the methodology in more detail.
The chart shows a 40% improvement but the sample size caveat is important.
-->

---

Step 4: Build and preview

After creating the markdown file, compile it:

npx @marp-team/marp-cli --theme-set ./themes/ presentations/your-file.md

This produces an HTML file in the same directory. Open it for the user to preview:

open presentations/your-file.html   # macOS
xdg-open presentations/your-file.html  # Linux

If the user wants PDF output:

npx @marp-team/marp-cli --theme-set ./themes/ --pdf presentations/your-file.md

If the user wants to iterate with live preview:

npx @marp-team/marp-cli --theme-set ./themes/ -p presentations/your-file.md

---

Step 5: Iterate

After showing the first build, ask:

How does that look? Anything you'd like to change — order, emphasis, more/fewer slides, different tone?

Be ready to:

• Reorder slides
• Add or remove content
• Adjust tone (more formal, more casual, more technical)
• Add speaker notes
• Switch themes if the audience has changed
• Add data slides from additional source material

---

Important notes

• Don't over-explain Marp to the user. They don't need to know about CSS themes or markdown directives. Just make the presentation.
• Don't ask too many questions. Get the essentials in Step 1, then produce a first draft. Iteration is cheaper than interrogation.
• Don't modify the theme CSS. Use the three themes as they are.
• Always compile and open the result so the user can see what they're getting.
• This skill is self-contained. The themes are bundled in references/. No external project or repo is needed.