ppt-generation-resilient

Resilient PowerPoint Generation Workflow

When to Use This Skill

Use this workflow when:

• You need to create PowerPoint presentations with specific slide content and structure
• Direct document generation tools fail or are unavailable
• shell_agent encounters opaque errors during PowerPoint generation
• Output files may be created in unexpected nested directories within the workspace

Overview

This workflow provides a resilient approach with two tiers:

1. Primary: shell_agent delegation with clear specifications
2. Fallback: Direct Python execution using python-pptx library with proper error capture

Step 0: Verify Working Directory

Before starting, establish your working directory context:

# Capture current working directory
pwd
# Store for later reference
WORK_DIR=$(pwd)
echo "Working directory: $WORK_DIR"

Step 1: Attempt PowerPoint Generation via shell_agent (Primary)

Delegate the PowerPoint creation task to shell_agent with explicit specifications:

Use shell_agent to create a PowerPoint presentation with:
- Specify the exact number of slides needed
- Define the content/topic for each slide
- Request the file be saved with a clear filename (e.g., presentation.pptx)
- Ask the agent to confirm the file path after creation using: echo "FILE_PATH: $(pwd)/presentation.pptx"
- Request that any errors be printed to stderr with full tracebacks

Example task description:

Create a PowerPoint presentation with 10 slides covering [topic]. Each slide should have a title and bullet points. Save it as presentation.pptx in the current working directory. After creation, run: echo "FILE_PATH: $(pwd)/presentation.pptx" and report any errors with full tracebacks.

Wait for shell_agent response. If successful with file path confirmed, proceed to Step 4. If shell_agent fails or returns opaque errors, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Fallback to Direct Python Execution with python-pptx

When shell_agent fails, create and execute a Python script directly: