scientific-slides

Trigger phrases

Phrases that activate this skill when typed to Claude Code:

• make slides for my talk
• create a conference presentation
• build a thesis defense deck
• PowerPoint for my seminar
• research presentation slides

What it does

scientific-slides is a Claude Code skill from K-Dense AI’s scientific-agent-skills repo. It turns Claude into a presentation designer that builds slide decks for research talks — PowerPoint files or LaTeX Beamer sources — with narrative structure tuned to scientific audiences, timing guidance per slide, and visual validation to flag slides that are overloaded.

A session produces a structured slide deck: title, overview, background, methods, results, and conclusion sections with slide-by-slide content, speaker notes, and a talk timing estimate calibrated to the allocated slot.

When to use it

Reach for it when:

• You’re preparing a conference talk and want a complete slide structure scaffolded from your paper or abstract
• You need timing guidance — knowing whether 15 slides fits a 12-minute slot before you’re on stage
• You’re doing a thesis defense and want a narrative arc that flows from introduction through future work

When not to reach for it:

• Conference posters — use latex-posters
• Visual infographics not tied to a talk — use infographics

Install

Copy the SKILL.md from K-Dense AI’s scientific-slides folder into .claude/skills/scientific-slides/ in your project.

Trigger phrases: “make slides for my talk”, “create a conference presentation”, “build a thesis defense deck”, “PowerPoint for my seminar”.

What a session looks like

A typical session has three phases:

1. Talk specification. Provide the paper or abstract, the talk slot duration, and the target audience level. Claude proposes a slide count, section breakdown, and timing budget.
2. Slide content drafting. Each slide is drafted with a headline, 3–5 bullet points or figure description, and speaker notes. Visual validation flags slides with more content than fits a 90-second pace.
3. Output file. A PowerPoint file (via python-pptx) or LaTeX Beamer source is generated, ready to open and apply your institution’s template.

Receipts

Where it works well:

• Structuring talks from a paper — Claude’s breakdown of background, methods, results, and future work follows logical narrative flow that scientific audiences expect
• Speaker notes are consistently useful; they capture the reasoning that the sparse slide bullets don’t convey

Where it backfires:

• Visual design quality depends on the output format — PowerPoint output is functional but not polished; Beamer output requires a custom theme file to look professional
• Domain-specific figures must be supplied by you; Claude generates placeholders with captions but cannot create the data plots

Pattern that works: treat the first output as a story outline rather than a finished deck; the narrative structure is where the skill adds value, not the visual polish.

Source and attribution

Originally authored by K-Dense Inc.. The canonical SKILL.md lives in the scientific-slides folder of their public scientific-agent-skills repository.

License: MIT. Install, adapt, and redistribute with attribution preserved.

This page documents the skill from a practitioner’s perspective. For the formal spec and any updates, defer to the source repo.