Slide Excellence Review

Source. Base orchestrator adapted from pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow. The conditional-spawn pattern (Visual Auditor + Pedagogy Reviewer + Proofreader, plus TikZ Reviewer when TikZ is present) and the synthesis pass are Pedro H.C. Sant'Anna's. The titles-as-assertions and density-audit pedagogy lenses layered on top are adapted from Scott Cunningham's MixtapeTools:beautiful_deck.

Run a comprehensive multi-dimensional review of a Beamer deck. Multiple subagents analyze the file independently, then results are synthesized.

Which slide-review tool do I want?

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- `/slide-excellence` (this skill) — multi-agent fanout (visual + pedagogy + proofread, plus TikZ if present). Best for pre-seminar (MKSCI / JMR / JCR / MS submission talks, faculty seminars) or pre-class (MBA Quant Marketing / Marketing Analytics) checks. - For a single lens, invoke the relevant subagent directly via the Agent tool: slide-auditor, pedagogy-reviewer, proofreader, or tikz-reviewer.

Important: this orchestrator does conditional dispatch — it only spawns the subagents that can produce useful output for the given file. tikz-reviewer only runs if TikZ blocks exist.

Step 1: Identify the File

Parse $ARGUMENTS for the filename. Decks usually live under <OVERLEAF_ROOT>/<PROJECT_SUBDIR>/ — often as slides_*.tex, presentation.tex, or inside a sub-folder. If only a basename is given, use Glob to locate it under the Overleaf root.

Only .tex (Beamer) is supported. The intended workflow is Beamer + Overleaf — no Quarto, no Markdown slides.

Step 2: Pre-flight — Detect Conditions

Before spawning any agent, probe the file with Grep to determine which reviews make sense.

• TikZ blocks present? Count \begin{tikzpicture} occurrences. If > 0, schedule tikz-reviewer.
• Preamble inheritance? Check for \input{preamble} or \input{../preamble.tex} so the pedagogy reviewer knows where the user's bold-math macros (e.g. \bphi, \bomega, \bz, \bw, \bs) are defined.
• Citation style? Confirm \citep, \citealt, \citet (natbib-apa) usage; flag any inline [Author, Year] strings the proofreader should catch.
• Cross-ref style? Confirm \Cref{...} rather than bare \ref{...}.

Report the detection:

File:         <resolved path>
Type:         Beamer (.tex)
TikZ blocks:  <N>
Preamble:     <path to preamble.tex if found, else "inline">
Bib style:    natbib-apa

Step 3: Run Review Agents in Parallel

Spawn only the agents whose conditions hold. Use the Agent tool, one call per subagent, in a single message so they run in parallel.

Always-on for any Beamer deck:

• Agent A: Visual Audit (slide-auditor)

Overflow, font consistency, box fatigue, spacing, image paths, overfull hbox risk. Save: quality_reports/[FILE]_visual_audit.md. Additional instruction to pass through:

For each frame, score visual density 1–5: count of words + a visual-complexity proxy (1 = sparse, 5 = overloaded). Report frame-by-frame density and the overall mean ± stdev. Flag any slide whose density is > 2σ from the mean for split-or-merge. Tag as MINOR by default; promote to MAJOR if density ≥ 4.5 and surrounding slides ≤ 2.5.

• Agent B: Pedagogical Review (pedagogy-reviewer)

13 pedagogical patterns, narrative arc, pacing, notation consistency vs preamble.tex. Save: quality_reports/[FILE]_pedagogy_report.md. Additional instruction to pass through:

Extract every \frametitle{...} and every \title{...} in sequence. Output the title-only storyline as a numbered list. For each title, classify as: - Assertion — makes a claim ("Treatment increased K/L by 18%") - Label — names a section ("Results", "Methodology", "Literature")

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Flag every label-title as a CRITICAL pedagogy issue UNLESS the slide is a section divider (Recap, Setup, Roadmap, Q&A, or the deck opens / closes a major section). The argument should be followable from titles alone.

• Agent C: Proofreading (proofreader)

Grammar, typos, overflow, citation-key consistency, \Cref usage, terminology. Save: quality_reports/[FILE]_proofread_report.md.

Conditional:

• Agent D: TikZ Review (tikz-reviewer) — only if has_tikz > 0.

Label position, overlap, geometric accuracy, visual semantics. Iterate until APPROVED. Save: quality_reports/[FILE]_tikz_review.md.

De-duplication: if the user has already invoked one of these subagents on this file in the current session, ask whether to reuse the existing report or re-run. Default: reuse (saves tokens).

Step 4: Synthesize Combined Summary

Only include sections for agents that actually ran.

# Slide Excellence Review: [Filename]

**File:** [path]
**Type:** Beamer (.tex)
**Detected:** TikZ=N | bib=natbib-apa
**Agents spawned:** [A, B, C, D] (skipped: D [no TikZ])

## Overall Quality Score: [EXCELLENT / GOOD / NEEDS WORK / POOR]

| Dimension       | Critical | Medium | Low |
|-----------------|----------|--------|-----|
| Visual/Layout   |          |        |     |
| Pedagogical     |          |        |     |
| Proofreading    |          |        |     |
| TikZ (if ran)   |          |        |     |

### Critical Issues (Immediate Action Required)
### Medium Issues (Next Revision)
### Recommended Next Steps

Step 5: Optional Recompile

If the deck has open issues that are LaTeX-level (e.g., undefined refs flagged by the proofreader), suggest the user run latexmk -pdf <file>.tex from the Overleaf project root. Do not auto-compile unless the user asks — Overleaf is the source of truth.

Step 6: Report Token Budget

Spawned N agents; approx token usage ~XXk. For a single-lens review,
invoke the subagent directly via the Agent tool (slide-auditor /
pedagogy-reviewer / proofreader / tikz-reviewer).

Quality Score Rubric

Flag Reference

Failure modes

• File not found. If $ARGUMENTS resolves to nothing under the Overleaf root, ask the user to pass an absolute path rather than guessing.
• Subagent missing. If one of slide-auditor, pedagogy-reviewer, proofreader, or tikz-reviewer isn't installed at ~/.claude/agents/, report which is missing and run the rest; don't silently skip everything.
• Preamble not found. If the deck \inputs a preamble that resolves to nothing, the pedagogy reviewer will under-report notation conflicts. Warn the user and continue.
• No TikZ but `tikz-reviewer` requested. Tell the user the conditional gate skipped it; offer to run anyway with the Agent tool directly.

Out of scope

• Quarto, RevealJS, PowerPoint, Markdown slides — Beamer only.
• Compiling the deck — use /compile-latex (or latexmk directly).
• Substance / domain review of econometric or methodological claims — that's the job of /review-paper or /review-pap.
• Editing the file. This skill only produces reports; the user applies the fixes.