Carousel builder

carousel-builder

Produce a finished, renderable carousel: on-brand copy + real PNG slides. Default output: English. Text is rendered as crisp HTML/CSS (never baked into an image model, which mangles paragraph text); imagery is the optional background layer. Reference: carousel mechanics §10, ABC §3, JSON prompting §12 in ../social-content-os/reference/frameworks.md. Load ../social-content-os/brand.json.

Inputs

• Topic, script, or the winning hook (from hook-lab).
• Slide count (default 8; range 7–10).
• Platform (IG default). Whether to generate background imagery (default yes).

Build steps

1. Structure the deck (ABC across slides):
   • Slide 1 — Scroll-Stop (hook, dark theme): the hook on a specific pain point. Highest visual energy.
   • Middle — Tension & Value: one idea per slide, numbered. Alternate theme light/dark for the "rhythm check". Match visual energy to narrative energy (high contrast on tension, calmer on teaching).
   • Final — Identity CTA: align the CTA with who the viewer wants to become, plus the comment-trigger ("Comment WORD").
   • Keep each slide to one idea; headline short, body 1–2 lines max.
2. Write slides.json in a new carousel folder (default ./carousels/<slug>/slides.json). Schema:

   {
     "slides": [
       {"n":1,"type":"hook","theme":"dark","eyebrow":"SECTION TAG",
        "headline":"...","body":"","bg_image":"bg-1.png","bg_prompt":"..."},
       {"n":2,"type":"value","theme":"light","eyebrow":"...","headline":"...","body":"..."},
       {"n":8,"type":"cta","theme":"dark","eyebrow":"...","headline":"...","body":"..."}
     ]
   }
   

   type is hook | value | cta. bg_prompt is the JSON-style image brief (subject as metaphor, not decoration; brand mood/palette); bg_image is the filename it will be saved as.
3. Generate backgrounds (if enabled): for slides with a bg_prompt, invoke the fal-media skill to generate each background image and save it into the carousel folder as the bg_image filename. Use a 4:5 / portrait size. Put NO hex codes or on-screen text in the image prompt — describe the scene/mood only (the typography is added by the renderer). Hero slides (1 and the CTA) benefit most; teaching slides can stay solid-color (omit bg_image) for legibility.
4. Render: run python3 <this skill dir>/render_carousel.py ./carousels/<slug> to produce slide-01.png … slide-NN.png (2160x2700, downscale-safe for IG/LinkedIn).
5. Write the caption by handing the topic to the caption-writer skill (or inline a quick one): hook line + 2–4 value lines + the comment-trigger CTA + 3–6 hashtags. Remind the user to add music so it also hits the Reels feed.

Output

• The carousel folder with slides.json and the rendered slide-*.png.
• The caption.
• A one-line note on what to test next (Best of Nine: recreate this format 3x with different hooks).

Keep copy specific and human. No AI tells (no em-dashes, en-dashes, smart quotes, "unlock/elevate/dive in"). If fal-media or Chrome is unavailable, still write slides.json and the copy, and tell the user what's missing.