PPT Defense Narrative Stage

Role

Use this stage to decide how the defense should be told before deciding individual slide layouts.

This is not the storyboard. It is the talk-level argument plan that the storyboard must follow. It should answer:

• What is the one sentence the committee should remember?
• What does the audience need to believe first, second, and last?
• What parts of the paper should be emphasized, compressed, moved to backup, or omitted?
• Where should likely objections be pre-answered?
• Do the action titles alone tell a coherent argument?

Required Inputs

Do not proceed unless these confirmed artifacts exist:

• align/ppt_production_brief_v*.md
• align/fact_ledger_v*.md

Use codex-deep-interview if any of these are still unclear:

• defense scenario, audience, time limit, slide count, or evaluation criteria;
• the main contribution claim the user wants to defend;
• advisor or committee preferences;
• rubric or committee map from the confirmed production brief;
• whether to optimize for passing defense, publication-style persuasion, demo impact, or technical rigor;
• which claims are risky, controversial, or not yet safe to emphasize.

Ask only high-impact questions. Do not deep-read sources again unless the fact ledger is visibly insufficient.

Required Output

Write or update:

• align/ppt_defense_narrative_v*.md

Include this metadata:

stage: defense_narrative
stage_status: draft | confirmed
requires_confirmed:
  - ppt_production_brief
  - fact_ledger
allowed_next_stage: ppt-storyboard-stage
confirmed_by: <user/date or empty>
source_inspirations:
  - https://github.com/Gabberflast/academic-pptx-skill
  - https://github.com/PHY041/claude-skill-academic-ppt

Use stage_status: draft until the user explicitly confirms the narrative. Codex must not self-confirm it.

Narrative Requirements

The artifact must include:

• defense thesis: one sentence that captures the core defendable claim;
• audience contract: what the committee likely cares about and how the talk will satisfy it;
• rubric/committee strategy: how the story addresses known evaluator concerns and grading criteria;
• argument arc: situation -> gap/problem -> approach -> evidence -> contribution -> limitation/answer;
• emphasis map: must-say, can-compress, backup-only, and omit decisions;
• risk map: likely committee questions, weak spots, and where to pre-answer them;
• action-title spine: a sequence of complete-sentence slide titles, not topic labels;
• ghost deck test: a short check of whether the action titles alone tell the full story;
• storyboard handoff notes: slide count/timing implications and constraints for ppt-storyboard-stage;
• open decisions for the user.

Action titles should be claims or takeaways. Avoid labels like Background, Method, Experiments, or Conclusion unless paired with an actual statement.

Guardrails

• Do not invent facts, results, baselines, datasets, or limitations.
• Do not replace the fact ledger as source of truth.
• Do not create the slide-by-slide storyboard in this stage.
• Do not plan assets, generate images, generate PPTX, or run render QA.
• Do not force the paper chapter order if a more persuasive defense order is needed.
• Keep backup content explicit so the main talk can stay focused.

Stop Rule

After writing a draft defense narrative, stop and ask the user to review the story, emphasis choices, and action-title spine.

When the user confirms, update only align/ppt_defense_narrative_v*.md to stage_status: confirmed, record confirmed_by, then stop again. The next user turn must explicitly invoke or allow ppt-storyboard-stage.