Best Claude Code skills for a slide deck: art, not layout
Claude Code can already build a slide deck — it writes the file, the structure, and the words. What it cannot do is make the pictures, and a deck of stock gradients everyone has seen before is what most presentations end up with. The Claude Code skills for a slide deck that actually change the result are the image models the Actionway Skill adds, at $0.15 per run. We made a title image and a matching section image for $0.30 for 2 runs at $0.15 per run, then sent the same brief to a cheaper model to see what changes.
Agent を接続するThe one thing the agent cannot do
Ask Claude Code for a deck and it will produce one: an outline, the file, the speaker notes, the structure of an argument. Every part of that is text work, which is what it is good at. Then you open the result and every slide is type on a plain background, because the agent has no image model and cannot make a picture. That gap is the entire reason this article exists, and it is filled by adding a catalog of image services to the same session.
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Editorial illustration for a business presentation title slide: three abstract translucent glass layers stacked at an angle, cool blue and soft teal palette, clean gradient background, subtle depth of field, modern corporate abstract style, generous empty space on the right, no text, no letters, no charts, no logos
GPT Image 2 at 16:9, 2K. "Generous empty space on the right" is what leaves room for the title; "no text, no letters, no charts" keeps the model from trying to write the slide for you.
Note the ratio. A slide is 16:9, the catalog generates 16:9, so this image goes onto a slide at full bleed with nothing cropped. That is a small thing that saves a step every single time, and it is the opposite of the Instagram case, where the platform's ratio is not one the catalog offers and every image needs a trim.
Making the second image match
A deck needs more than one picture, and the second one has to look like it belongs to the first. Same technique as anywhere else: pass the title image back as a reference, describe a different subject, and say nothing about the style at all.
That is the result you want from a deck image set: a viewer should not be able to tell that the two slides were made in separate runs. Nothing in the second prompt mentioned blue, teal, gradients, or glass; all of it came from the reference.
What the cheaper model did differently
The catalog's cheapest image model runs at $0.10 per run, so it is a fair question whether the difference is worth paying for on a deck nobody will study closely. We sent the identical brief and the identical reference to it.
Neither behaviour is wrong. If you want a set that repeats a motif deliberately — the same shape recurring on every divider — the more literal reading is useful. If you want variety inside one visual language, it is not. Knowing which you are getting is worth one test run before you commission twelve slides, and at these prices that test is the cheapest part of the deck.
What a deck's worth of art costs
| What you need | Images | Cost at catalog prices |
|---|---|---|
| Title plus one divider | 2 | $0.30 for 2 runs at $0.15 per run |
| A short deck with section art | 6 | $0.90 for 6 runs at $0.15 per run |
| A long deck, one image per section | 12 | $1.80 for 12 runs at $0.15 per run |
The comparison worth making is not against a cheaper model, it is against the alternative: a stock subscription, or an afternoon of searching for images that nearly fit. A dozen images made to your brief, in one visual language, priced before they run, is a different kind of purchase.
Four rules that keep a deck coherent
Keep text out of the image
Ask for empty space where the title goes and set the type in your layout tool. Image models spell badly, and type baked into a picture cannot be edited when the title changes an hour before the meeting.
Make the title image first, then reference it
It is the style guide for everything after it. If it is wrong, fix it before generating anything else, because every later image inherits whatever it establishes.
Generate at 16:9
It is the slide ratio, so nothing needs cropping. If a slide is going to be viewed on a phone as a PDF, generate that one at a different ratio rather than trimming the wide version.
Test the reference behaviour once
Run one section image before committing to a set, and check whether the model took the style or the objects. One run answers it.
Running it from Claude Code
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Make a 16:9 title image from this brief, then three section images using it as a reference, and drop them into the deck as full-bleed backgrounds.
Four priced runs and a local file step in one request. The agent lists the image models with prices before anything runs, picking one is the approval, and the files land in your project.
Building the deck file, writing the outline, and placing the images are all things the agent already does locally at no charge; the Skill installed with the CLI adds the image generation capability that makes the artwork. Every run is priced first, and an empty wallet stops the job before anything is charged. If a slide needs a chart rather than an illustration, that is data work the agent should do itself — an image model will draw something that looks like a chart and means nothing.
Set it up once
npm install --global @actionway/cli@latest
actionway init
mkdir -p "$HOME/.claude/skills"
cp -R "$HOME/.actionway/skill/actionway" "$HOME/.claude/skills/actionway"You need Node.js 20 or newer and an Actionway account. Codex users copy the same folder into ~/.codex/skills/actionway instead, and both routes reach the same catalog and the same wallet — the get started page lists the steps per client side by side.
よくある質問
Can Claude Code make a PowerPoint?It can build the file, the outline, and the notes on its own. What it cannot do is make the pictures inside it — for that the Actionway Skill adds image models at $0.15 per run, and the images land in your project ready to place.
How do I keep slide images looking like one deck?Make the title image first, then pass it back as a reference on every later image and describe only the new subject. Our section image inherited the palette, the gradient, and the glassy finish without any of them being mentioned again.
Is the cheapest image model good enough for a deck?It produced a usable image at $0.10 per run, but it read the reference more literally and carried an object over from the title image that the brief had not asked for. Run one test slide and see which behaviour you are getting.