SKILL.md
Deck Autopsy Skill
A deck is an argument wearing design. This skill reads slide images the way a sceptical partner does — reconstructing the claim chain, checking the numbers against each other across slides, and naming the questions the deck is built to keep the room from asking.
What This Skill Produces
- A slide-by-slide read: each slide's claim, its evidence, and what the design emphasises or buries
- The reconstructed argument chain — the deck's whole case as explicit premises → conclusion, with the weak links marked
- A cross-slide consistency check on the numbers
- The avoided questions — what a hostile reader asks that the deck never answers, and (if it's your deck) how to fix that before they do
Required Inputs
- The slide images, in order if possible. If none attached, ask — this skill autopsies real slides, not deck ideas.
- Whose deck and why (ask if missing): analysing a competitor/pitch, or hardening your own before the meeting — the output's stance flips accordingly.
Autopsy Method
- Read each slide twice. Once for the claim (usually the headline), once for the support (the chart, the numbers, the logos). A slide whose headline isn't proven by its own body gets flagged on the spot.
- Read the design as rhetoric. Truncated y-axes, cherry-picked date ranges, percentages without denominators, log scales unannounced, "representative" logos — chart crimes are claims about weakness. Note them per slide.
- Reconstruct the chain. The deck's argument as numbered premises leading to its ask. Every deck has one; most hide a step. The hidden step is the weakest link.
- Cross-examine the numbers. Do the figures agree across slides (TAM vs revenue math, growth rate vs the chart, headcount vs burn)? Cross-slide inconsistency is the highest-value finding an autopsy produces.
- List the avoided questions. Given the claims made, what would a sceptic ask next that no slide answers? Absence is evidence of the sore spot.
- Anchor everything. Every finding cites its slide number. Unreadable content is flagged, never guessed.