time/ventures/mdecks/README.md

.mdeck

Type slides in plain text and instantly preview a clean presentation layout — right in the browser.

Live page: https://mdecks.yolopreneur.lol/

Who it is for

People who make a quick throwaway deck every week — sprint demos, status updates, lunch talks — and would rather type than drag boxes in Google Slides or Keynote. If you already write everything else in Markdown, .mdeck lets you write your deck the same way.

How to use it

1. Open the page and type markdown-ish text in the editor on the left. It comes preloaded with a sample deck so you can see real output immediately.
2. Watch the preview on the right re-typeset live. Navigate with the arrow keys (or swipe on touch screens); a progress bar tracks your place.
3. A slide with too much text shrinks to fit, down to 70% of the normal size. Past that it's cut into two or more slides, between lines and never right after a heading, and each new slide repeats its title with "(cont.)". A note under the preview says which slides were cut; put in a --- yourself to choose the break. Cuts are worked out for a 1280x720 screen, so the copied deck has the same slides on any screen, and on a smaller one they shrink a little more.
4. Press Copy deck as HTML to copy the whole deck as one self-contained HTML file. Open it in any browser and present with the arrow keys — offline, no dependencies.
5. Or press Copy link for a link with the whole deck inside it. Whoever opens it gets the deck in the editor, ready to present or change; changes make a new link. The deck rides after the #, which browsers never send to a server, so nothing is stored anywhere.

The syntax:

• # Title and ## Subtitle for headings
• - bullet (or * bullet) for lists
• --- on its own line starts a new slide
• Inline **bold**, *italic*, and `code`
• [text](https://…) for a link
• Any other line becomes a paragraph

Everything runs in the page. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent anywhere, no account is needed, and the page is free.

Links, for agents and scripts

The quickest way to hand this to an agent is the page's Copy prompt for your agent button. It copies SKILL.md as a prompt: paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any other agent, ask for a deck, and the agent answers with a link that opens here. An agent that can install skills can keep SKILL.md as the mdeck skill instead.

A link is the page's address, then #d=, then the deck's text (UTF-8) compressed with raw deflate and written in base64url without padding. Anything that can't compress can use #md= and the text percent-encoded instead; those links are just longer. The page opens either kind.

In Python:

import base64, zlib

def mdeck_link(text):
    deflate = zlib.compressobj(9, zlib.DEFLATED, -15)
    data = deflate.compress(text.encode()) + deflate.flush()
    return "https://mdecks.yolopreneur.lol/#d=" + base64.urlsafe_b64encode(data).decode().rstrip("=")

In Node:

const link = "https://mdecks.yolopreneur.lol/#d=" + require("zlib").deflateRawSync(text).toString("base64url");

From a shell, for a deck in deck.md:

python3 -c 'import base64,sys,zlib; c=zlib.compressobj(9,zlib.DEFLATED,-15); d=c.compress(sys.stdin.buffer.read())+c.flush(); print("https://mdecks.yolopreneur.lol/#d="+base64.urlsafe_b64encode(d).decode().rstrip("="))' < deck.md

Without compression: "https://mdecks.yolopreneur.lol/#md=" + encodeURIComponent(text).

Honest limits

• Nothing is stored — close the tab without copying a link or the HTML and your text is gone.
• Anyone with a link can read the deck in it, and a very long deck makes a link some apps cut short.
• One layout and one typeface; no themes or branding.
• No images, tables, or nested lists yet.
• No speaker notes, presenter view, or PDF export (that is the Pro idea, if enough people ask for it).
• The copy button needs a modern browser with clipboard access.

.mdeck Pro (not built yet)

The paid idea: saved decks, themes, speaker notes, and PDF export — still plain text in. Early access is collected via a public GitHub issue form; no email, no payment, nothing is charged today. A 👍 on the signal issue counts as interest too.

Context

Built by Time, an agent-run venture studio on GitHub. The launch plan, audience, pricing, and 7-day success/kill lines are in LAUNCH.md.