TikTok Slideshow Generator

Creates a 6-slide vertical slideshow: a title slide plus five app slides, each a
darkened background photo with a rounded-square logo tile, a numbered heading,
and a short first-person caption. Slide 1 is always Claude, slide 2 is always
CheckVibe; slides 3-5 are picked at random from the other apps. Every run
also produces a caption.txt with a post title, caption, and 5 hashtags.

Fastest path — generate one now

python3 scripts/make_slideshow.py

This needs only Pillow (pre-installed). It writes a timestamped folder under
runs/, e.g. runs/2026-05-24_0800/ containing slide_00.jpg … slide_05.jpg
(3:4, 1080x1440) and caption.txt. It prints the output path, app order, title,
caption, and hashtags. Pass a photos directory as the first argument to override
the default (../startup-grind).

When run interactively, after the script finishes you should open the slides,
check every caption is legible over its background, and report the output
folder, title, caption, and hashtags to the user. The compositor darkens photos
with a continuous gradient and an adaptive boost, so text stays readable, but a
quick visual check is still worthwhile.

How it works

• Backgrounds — assets/approved_photos.txt is a hand-vetted pool of clean
  workspace photos (no text/watermarks, not weird, dark or darkenable).
  assets/title_photos.txt is a smaller pool of strong hero shots used only for
  the title slide. Photos themselves live in the sibling startup-grind/ folder.
• Logos — assets/logos/*.png are pre-built rounded-square app-icon tiles
  (Claude, CheckVibe, Cursor, PostHog, Supabase, Notion, Vercel, Figma, GitHub).
• Copy — assets/copy_bank.json holds 3 caption variants per app, title-slide
  variants, post-caption variants, and a hashtag pool. Each run rotates a fresh
  combination.
• Compositor — scripts/slideshow.py renders each slide: cover-crop to 3:4,
  darken, apply a top-down dark scrim sized to the text block, adaptively boost
  if the text region is still bright, then draw the logo (with soft shadow) and
  text (with soft shadow).

Customizing

• Add an app: drop a logo tile in assets/logos/<key>.png and add an entry
  under apps in copy_bank.json, then add <key> to rotating_pool.
• Change captions / hashtags / titles: edit copy_bank.json.
• Add background photos: append filenames to assets/approved_photos.txt
  (vet them first — no text or watermarks on the image).
• Rebuild logos: tiles are app-icon style — brand color background, white or
  brand-color glyph, ~22.5% corner radius. Brand glyphs came from the
  simple-icons package; the CheckVibe tile is cropped from the user's logo
  asset onto a #0B0B0B tile.

Output

Each runs/<timestamp>/ folder contains:

• slide_00.jpg … slide_05.jpg — the six 3:4 slides
• caption.txt — title + the full long caption (with hashtags appended)
• post.zip — all 6 slides zipped, one-click desktop download
• post.html — the "post sheet" and the primary deliverable:
  • all 6 slides are base64-embedded inside the file, so it is
    fully self-contained — AirDropping just this one HTML to a phone
    is enough; no sibling files needed.
  • Mobile: a "Save all 6 to Photos" button uses the Web Share
    API to drop every slide into the camera roll in one tap; long-pressing
    any thumbnail also offers "Save to Photos".
  • Desktop: same Copy and ZIP buttons.
  • The textarea pre-loads the long caption (hook + numbered app
    list with taglines + CTA + 5 hashtags), tuned for the TikTok
    algorithm — copy-and-paste ready.
  • Native posting beats auto-posting on the TikTok algo, so this
    "post sheet" workflow is intentional. Present post.html first.

Sending to your phone

Two ways the files get from this generator to your iPhone:

Mac → iCloud Photos → iPhone (recommended). Each run produces an
import-to-photos.command script that, when double-clicked, imports the 6
slides into the macOS Photos app via AppleScript. If iCloud Photos is on,
they sync to your iPhone within seconds. The "Save to Mac Photos" button
in post.html downloads import-to-photos.zip (the script is wrapped in a
zip so the +x bit survives the browser download — macOS Archive Utility
unzips automatically). First-time GateKeeper prompt: right-click the
unzipped .command → Open. The script bakes absolute host paths via
_host_path(), so it works regardless of where it's executed from
(including when the runner itself ran inside the Cowork sandbox).

iCloud Drive (post.html only).

Each run also copies post.html to the first cloud-synced folder it can find,
so the file shows up on your phone seconds later:

1. iCloud Drive — ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/TikTokSlideshows/
   (default on macOS — open the Files app on iPhone → iCloud Drive → TikTokSlideshows)
2. Dropbox — ~/Dropbox/TikTokSlideshows/
3. Google Drive — ~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-MyDrive/TikTokSlideshows/
4. Custom — set the SLIDESHOW_SHARE_DIR environment variable to any
   absolute path and post.html files land there with timestamped names.

Open the mirrored file in mobile Safari and the "Save all 6 to Photos" +
"Copy caption" buttons work natively against the embedded data.

Title slide

assets/title_slide.png is the first slide of every run, used as a
type:'static' slide — no compositing, just cover-cropped to 3:4 with
text baked in. The scheduled task regenerates this file via Higgsfield
(nano_banana_pro) before each run, so the title varies each time
while preserving the vibe, person, colours, and the headline text. The
original reference image is the cached upload media_id 21d153bf-5856-4f47-a9e6-4cd680106a38 (Higgsfield CDN), produced from
/Users/yvesromano/checkvibe-Marketing/start_always.png. Manual runs of
make_slideshow.py skip the regen and use whatever title_slide.png
exists.

App lineup

• Slide 1 is always Claude.
• Slide 2 alternates: odd-numbered runs use SiteJourney (and push
  CheckVibe to slide 3); even-numbered runs skip SiteJourney and put
  CheckVibe in slide 2.
• Remaining slots (5 apps total) are random samples from rotating_pool
  in copy_bank.json.
• Parity is decided by counting existing folders in runs/ — so the first
  run after install includes SiteJourney, the next skips it, and so on.

Caption strategy

Captions rotate from caption_templates in copy_bank.json. Each template
has hook → intro → {app_list} placeholder → CTA → {hashtags} placeholder.
The runner builds {app_list} by joining each picked app's short tagline
field. Edit taglines or templates in copy_bank.json to tune voice.