deckpipe

Agent-first slide deck rendering engine. Agents author each slide as HTML/CSS/JS; deckpipe renders it inside a sandboxed 1920×1080 shadow root, themes it via deck-level CSS variables, gives every deck a shareable viewer URL, and supports threaded commenting from collaborators.

• Hosted: deckpipe.dev
• Remote MCP: https://deckpipe.dev/mcp (Streamable HTTP)
• Stdio MCP: npx deckpipe-mcp

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How it works

An agent calls create_deck with HTML, CSS, and (optionally) JS for each slide:

{
  "title": "Q2 Launch",
  "head": [
    { "tag": "link", "attrs": { "rel": "stylesheet", "href": "https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Fraunces:opsz,wght@9..144,400&display=swap" } }
  ],
  "stylesheet": ".hero { font-family: 'Fraunces', serif; font-size: 128px; color: #0f172a; }",
  "slides": [
    {
      "layout": "canvas",
      "content": {
        "html": "<h1 class=\"hero\" data-dp-anchor=\"title\">Q2 launch</h1>",
        "js": "slide.querySelector('h1').animate([{opacity:0},{opacity:1}], 600);"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Each slide mounts in an open shadow root, so CSS is auto-scoped — no BEM, no class prefixes. Deck-level stylesheet is adopted by every slide, so a design system written once shows up everywhere. Load fonts via head entries and reference them in your stylesheet.

Reviewers open the viewer URL and can comment on any DOM element (auto-anchored via data-dp-anchor for stability across edits). The agent reads those comments via MCP, edits the deck, and replies — full collaborative loop without humans touching JSON.

The hosted instance at deckpipe.dev is free and unauthenticated — decks are addressed by unguessable IDs. You can also self-host the whole stack.

Use it

From Claude.ai / Claude Desktop / any Streamable HTTP MCP client

Add https://deckpipe.dev/mcp as a custom remote MCP server. No auth.

From Claude Code (local stdio)

claude mcp add deckpipe -- npx deckpipe-mcp

Manual MCP config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deckpipe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "deckpipe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask the agent to "build a deck about X". The agent gets back a viewer URL you can open and comment on.

Skill for your agent

The MCP INSTRUCTIONS your agent receives are intentionally tight. The richer design guidance — brief-clarification questions, density rules, reference-style cheatsheet, the layout-safety pattern, post-create overflow sweep — lives in an open agent skill.

Read it: https://deckpipe.dev/skill.md

Install with the open agent skills CLI (works across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, Roo, and more):

npx skills add bjoern2000/deckpipe

Manual install (Claude Code):

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/deckpipe-design
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/deckpipe-design/SKILL.md https://deckpipe.dev/skill.md

The canonical source lives in this repo at .claude/skills/deckpipe-design/SKILL.md.

Self-host

git clone https://github.com/bjoern2000/deckpipe
cd deckpipe
npm install

cp .env.example .env       # set DATABASE_URL, PORT, IMAGE_STORAGE_PATH, etc.
npm run db:migrate         # apply SQL migrations (local Postgres)

npm run dev                # API on :3010, viewer on :5173
npm run build              # production builds for all packages

Point your MCP client at http://localhost:3010/mcp, or run the stdio shim with DECKPIPE_API_URL=http://localhost:3010 npx deckpipe-mcp.

Architecture

This is a single Node.js / TypeScript monorepo (npm workspaces). Five packages:

Package	What
packages/shared	Zod schemas, types, ID generators. Source of truth for the data model.
packages/mcp-core	MCP tool definitions (registerTools, INSTRUCTIONS). Imported by both MCP transports — single source of truth.
packages/api	Express REST API on /v1/* plus the remote MCP transport at /mcp. PostgreSQL with JSONB.
packages/viewer	Lit web components. Renders canvas slides into shadow roots, handles edit mode, comment overlay, presenter/print modes.
packages/mcp	Standalone npm package deckpipe-mcp — stdio + HTTP transports for local agents. Pure transport plumbing, calls into mcp-core.

Tools (MCP):

Tool	Description
create_deck	Create a new deck, get a shareable viewer URL.
get_deck	Read deck state including open comments.
update_deck	Edit slide content, restructure slides, change theme.
delete_deck	Permanently delete a deck.
upload_image	Upload base64 PNG/JPG/WebP, get a hosted URL.
search_images	Unsplash search with automatic attribution + download tracking.
preview_slide	Render a transient slide (no persistence) and return a screenshot + render report.
get_slide_screenshot	Render a specific slide of an existing deck. Cached on updated_at.
list_layouts	Describe the canvas layout and deck-level theming options.
list_comments	List comments on a deck (filter by status, slide, since-timestamp).
reply_to_comment	Reply to a comment thread.
resolve_comment	Mark a comment as resolved.

A note on layouts: deckpipe 0.2 had 25 templated layouts (title_and_bullets, stats, swot, etc.). They're now deprecated for new content — canvas is the only layout the MCP advertises. Existing decks using templated layouts still render unchanged, and the schema still accepts them. See CLAUDE.md → "Resurrecting deprecated layouts" for the steps to re-enable them on the MCP surface.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome. Before sending substantial changes, please open an issue to discuss the approach.

This project will eventually require a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) so contributions can be relicensed alongside the auto-conversion to Apache 2.0 in 2030. For now, every PR is reviewed by hand and small contributions are accepted under the file's existing license.

License

FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0 — Functional Source License, Version 1.1, Apache 2.0 Future License.

Free for: self-hosting, internal use, education, research, and any non-competing use. Prohibited until 2030-05-11: offering deckpipe (or a substantially-similar service) as a commercial hosted product to third parties. After the change date the entire repository auto-converts to Apache 2.0.

"deckpipe" is a trademark held separately. Forks must rename.

Copyright © 2026 Björn Schefzyk.