tech-talk-outline skill (samber): outline an accepted conference talk

Turns an accepted conference abstract into a rehearsable outline with a time budget, demo placement and cut points.

Installs: 12.4K; on skills.sh
Stars: 7; on GitHub
Files: 5; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Nov 2026; last repo commit

tech-talk-outline structures what a talk says. It extracts the promise the abstract made, drafts one arrow sentence a listener would repeat a week later, offers two or three narrative arcs and waits for your choice, then adds two or three pillars with evidence, the moment of realization, a minute-by-minute budget with a buffer, demo placement and a slide skeleton. It also writes cut checkpoints and a rehearsal plan.

It triggers on "talk outline", "my talk got accepted, now what", "my talk runs over time" or "where should the demo go". It bundles no scripts. SKILL.md says it refuses to output slide files or a word-for-word script, and it does not cover the CFP abstract or stage-delivery coaching.

Good for

Speakers whose talk was just accepted
Speakers whose talk runs over time and need to know what to cut
Speakers deciding where the demo goes

Install tech-talk-outline

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the tech-talk-outline skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

The README recommends installing the whole collection because its skills reference each other, and tech-talk-outline names other skills in the collection to hand work to. The whole-collection routes add all 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree); the repo holds no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. Pick one route per agent.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Turns an accepted conference talk abstract into a rehearsable outline - the one-sentence takeaway, a narrative arc, a minute-by-minute time budget, demo placement, and a slide skeleton with cut checkpoints. Use whenever someone says "talk outline", "technical talk structure", "slide skeleton", "my talk got accepted, now what", "how do I structure this conference talk", "my talk runs over time", "what do I cut from my talk", or "where should the demo go" - even if they only say they are preparing a conference session. Structures what the talk says. Not the CFP abstract - use samber/developer-relations-skills@conference-cfp-submission. Not slide files, not stage-delivery coaching.

Sections in SKILL.md

Interview
Workflow
Invocation and output shape
Time budget
Demo placement
Slide skeleton
Audience calibration
Rehearsal and quality gate
Failure modes
References

Key facts

Author: Samuel Berthe (named in SKILL.md metadata, LICENSE and the plugin manifest)
License: MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md frontmatter, plugin.json and marketplace.json agree)
Skill version: 1.0.2 (SKILL.md metadata)
Installs on skills.sh: 12,402 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 8 for the whole samber/developer-relations-skills repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit: Nov 1, 2026
Audits on skills.sh: Gen Agent Trust Hub: pass, Socket: pass, Snyk: pass
What it includes: 6 files in the git tree: SKILL.md, evals/evals.json and 4 files under references/. No scripts.
Needs: SKILL.md lists nothing to install
Part of: The developer-relations-skills plugin: 93 skill folders in the git tree
Works in: The README documents installs for Claude Code, Claude.ai, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI, all for the whole set

What it includes

Asks 12 questions, starting with the accepted title and abstract.
Interview
Writes one sentence a listener would repeat a week later, reused as the closer.
One sentence the listener would still repeat a week later, reused as the closing line.
Arrow
Drops infeasible arcs, ranks the rest and recommends one.
Arc
Picks two or three pillars with evidence and where the audience's belief flips.
Two or three pillars with evidence, and the point where the audience's belief flips.
Pillars and realization
Sets minute ranges per section and keeps 10-15% of the slot as buffer.
Minute ranges per section with 10-15% of the slot kept as buffer.
Time budget
Puts the demo after the problem lands, with two minutes of speaking after it.
Places the demo after the audience believes the problem and keeps at least two minutes of speaking after it.
Demo placement
Lists what each slide accomplishes, with takeaway-sentence titles.
An ordered list of what each slide accomplishes, with takeaway-sentence titles.
Slide skeleton
Adds per-section timing checkpoints saying what to drop if you are behind.
Per-section timing checkpoints saying what to drop if behind.
Cut checkpoints
Runs an accordion from 3 minutes to 30 seconds and back, with a five-item gate.
An accordion run from 3 minutes down to 30 seconds and back, and a five-item quality gate.
Rehearsal plan

From the official docs

Permissions

Low risk

tech-talk-outline is interview and planning instructions with no scripts, and it may save notes to devrel-context.md.

What it can do

Read your data
Create and change things
Delete things
Read-only mode

Watch out for

It may save notes to devrel-context.md
SKILL.md tells Claude to keep task and project context in devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file, or in the memory system your tool already uses. Check the file before you commit it. github.com
The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 with scripts
The README says to install every skill. The git tree has 93 skill folders, and 14 of them hold .py or .sh files. This skill bundles no scripts, and the tree holds no hooks, agents or MCP config files. github.com

Technical details

Turning on read-only	SKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Sign-in and keys	SKILL.md names no account, key or token.
Scopes	Claude writes a talk outline in the conversation Abstract text and any numbers you give it go into the conversation Writes devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file

Questions

What does tech-talk-outline do?

It turns an accepted talk abstract into an outline you can rehearse, time and cut live. You get an arrow sentence, an arc, pillars, a time budget, a slide skeleton, cut checkpoints and a rehearsal plan.

How do I install it?

Use the install box at the top. The README says to install every skill in the repo, because the skills point to each other. The box shows the whole-set route for each app.

Does it make my slides or write my script?

No. SKILL.md says to refuse both: it produces a structured outline, not slide files and not prose to be read aloud, because a word-for-word script is harmful when you lose your place.

My talk is too long for the slot. What does it do?

SKILL.md treats slot length as an input and uses an accordion rehearsal to find what survives at 30 seconds. What appears only on the way back up becomes the cut list, in cut order. It does not rank the cuts itself.

Is it safe to install?

The skill bundles no scripts. Your abstract, numbers and any embargoed details go into your conversation. The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 of which bundle scripts.

How is it different from conference-cfp-submission?

This skill starts after acceptance. SKILL.md routes writing the abstract to samber/developer-relations-skills@conference-cfp-submission and making the demo failure-resistant to developer-live-demo-design.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder: skills/tech-talk-outline

samber/developer-relations-skills skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 3

README · github.com
tech-talk-outline SKILL.md · github.com
LICENSE · github.com