PCafe is an HTML slide-deck engine built for presentations written by AI assistants. A deck is composed only from fixed, pre-designed templates, so the layout, typography, colour and motion are already decided. The writer (human or AI) chooses templates, fills in content within each template's limits, and runs a check. If the check passes, the deck looks as good as the reference decks.
- 251 templates for data, comparisons, structures, timelines, quotes, screenshots and pacing slides, each with documented "good for / avoid / content limits".
- 33 style presets (title typography, corner radius, paper colour, decoration) and 5 colour themes, freely combinable.
- One offline HTML file:
buildinlines fonts, images and code into a single file you can send to anyone. - Automated QA: type check, build and a browser check of every slide at several window sizes (overflow, text collisions, font sizes, remote requests). The last line is
PASSorFAIL, and every slide is screenshotted toqa/for review. - Presenting: presenter view with notes, timer and next slide; laser pointer, pen and zoom; overview grid; autoplay; step-by-step reveals; PDF export through the browser's print dialog.
Requires Node.js.
npx @pcafe/pcafe init my-talk # create a project in my-talk/
cd my-talk && npm install
npx pcafe new q3-review # create src/decks/q3-review/index.tsx from the starter
npx pcafe dev q3-review # live preview in the browser
npx pcafe check q3-review # type check + build + QA; last line is PASS or FAIL
npx pcafe build q3-review # write dist/q3-review.html (single offline file)Other commands:
npx pcafe docs # regenerate the template reference after changing templates or styles
npx pcafe photos # optional: download atmosphere photos with your own UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEYIn the dev preview, open #/kit for the live template gallery and #/kit/styles to compare styles side by side.
The project is written to be driven by coding assistants. Tools that read AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md, which includes it) pick up the rules automatically. The step-by-step method for turning notes into a deck is in skills/pcafe/: a skill file plus generated reference tables for every template and style. Assistants that support skills can load it directly; others can simply be told to read skills/pcafe/SKILL.en.md.
A typical prompt: "Make a 10-slide deck about our Q3 results from notes.md, following AGENTS.md. Finish when npx pcafe check prints PASS and you have looked at every screenshot in qa/."
The skill also works outside a PCafe project: when it is triggered in an empty folder it creates one with npx @pcafe/pcafe init.
- Claude Code (plugin):
/plugin marketplace add Web-Casa/pcafe, then/plugin install pcafe@pcafe - Any agent with skills (Codex, OpenClaw, Cursor and others):
npx skills add Web-Casa/pcafe, or copyskills/pcafe/into the agent's skills folder (~/.claude/skills/,~/.agents/skills/,~/.openclaw/skills/) - Office agents (WorkBuddy, Qwen Work, Doubao, Kimi Work): upload pcafe-skill.zip in their skills manager
Step-by-step instructions for each tool: p.cafe/en/skills.
Images are imported into the deck and inlined at build time. Only three kinds are allowed:
| Kind | File name | May be used as |
|---|---|---|
| Real screenshots | anything, in the deck's assets/ |
Evidence |
| Stock photos | photo-…, in src/assets/photos/ |
Atmosphere only (cover, section, scene). Never presented as your customers, team, product or office. Credit required: source says "Photo: Unsplash / author name"; author and link are recorded in credits.json. |
| AI illustrations | decor-…, in the deck's assets/ |
Decoration only. Never presented as a screenshot or evidence. |
Photos are not shipped with the package; npx pcafe photos downloads them with your own API key.
| docs/en/README.md | Overview and first deck |
| docs/en/guide.md | Writing a deck: workflow and rules |
| docs/en/presenting.md | Keys, presenter view, PDF, notes, tone, texture, transitions |
| docs/en/contributing.md | Adding templates and style presets, QA rules |
| docs/en/components.md | Template reference (generated; in English) |
Works made with PCafe (decks, papers, cards, courses, screens, print, video) keep the "Made with PCafe" credit linking to https://p.cafe: decks show it in the first and last slide header and in the controls; the other formats show it in the footer.
DeckDef.attribution: false (and the same option in the other formats' defs) works only when @pcafe/pro is installed and you hold a valid PCafe Pro licence. Without Pro the option is ignored and a console warning explains why.
CPAL-1.0 section 15: publishing a work on a website counts as an External Deployment. If you have not modified engine files, linking to the public repository meets the source-code requirement; if you modified engine files, publish those changed files. Your own slide content is not affected.
Open source under CPAL-1.0. Free for commercial use; works keep the "Made with PCafe" credit and link. Pro removes the credit. See LICENSE. Bundled fonts, icons and other third-party components keep their own licenses, listed in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.