Deckwright

Deckwright

Deckwright is a Rust toolkit for building editable PowerPoint slides and inspecting the animation data inside .pptx files. It can create a deck from a blank template, replace slides in an existing package, run structural checks, and answer questions such as “what is visible on slide 2 after the first click?” through a CLI or an MCP server.

The public Morph demo builds three editable slides with an explicit Morph match, a click reveal, and a motion path. Watch the 26-second PowerPoint demo to see the transition, a selected native shape, and a real timing query. The presentation authoring skill gives agents a workflow for using these APIs.

Get started

Install a Rust toolchain, then install the CLI and MCP server:

cargo install dw-cli --version 0.1.1 --locked
cargo install dw-mcp --version 0.1.1 --locked

Release archives provide prebuilt dw and dw-mcp binaries for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

To build and inspect the example deck, run these commands from a Deckwright checkout:

cargo run --locked -p deckwright --example morph_demo -- demo.pptx
dw check demo.pptx --json
dw query morph demo.pptx --from 1 --to 2 --json
dw query state demo.pptx --slide 2 --at-ms 400 --clicks-ms 0 --json

Choose a new output filename for each build; Deckwright refuses to overwrite an existing .pptx. Slide numbers are one based. Query times and click times are milliseconds since slide entry; --clicks-ms is the complete click history up to --at-ms.

What works today

Task	Entry point
Build editable slides with shapes, text, pictures, tables, charts, and timing in the supported model	deckwright Rust crate; see the Morph demo source
Open a .pptx, inspect its parts, preserve unchanged parts, and write a new package	Package; dw inspect and dw roundtrip
Check supported package, slide, timing, and bounds rules	dw check
Inspect slide state, timeline, and explicit Morph pairs	dw query state, dw query timeline, dw query morph
Give an agent the same checks and queries over stdio	dw-mcp; see agent integration

The CLI contract defines query input and output. Reports represent the timing and geometry Deckwright understands; unsupported or ambiguous behavior is reported as unknown. Morph pairing currently covers unique explicit !!name matches. A passing check, successful query, or static render does not establish PowerPoint animation playback, font fit, or visual fidelity. Verify those in PowerPoint for any delivered deck.

Choose a workflow

• Create a presentation with an agent
• Connect an agent to the MCP server
• Compare Deckwright and python-pptx
• Run the neutral Morph demo
• Read the benchmark method and results

Project scope

Deckwright began as a reconstruction of a 25-slide thesis presentation. The implementation plan records its fidelity and performance targets. The thesis source and extracted media are private and excluded from Git; the public demo uses generated neutral content. Preserve source wording, screenshots, photos, and app UI when editing a supplied deck.

The reference inspection benchmark measured 205.32 ms p95 and 78.75 MiB peak RSS on its documented WSL host; see the measurement PR for the revision and workload. Build, edit, and query budgets in the plan are targets, not measured results. The full thesis reconstruction and PowerPoint playback acceptance remain separate gates.

Development

cargo test --workspace --locked

See AGENTS.md for repository guidance and the oracle notes for PowerPoint verification limits.