Ck:preview

Preview

Universal viewer + visual generator. View existing content OR generate new visual explanations.

Default (No Arguments)

If invoked without arguments, ask the user to choose available preview operations:

| Operation | Description | |-----------|-------------| | (view) | View a file or directory | | --explain | Generate visual explanation | | --slides | Generate presentation slides | | --diagram | Generate architecture diagram | | --ascii | Terminal-friendly diagram | | --stop | Stop preview server |

Present options with header "Preview Operation", question "What would you like to do?".

Usage

View Mode

• $preview - View markdown file in novel-reader UI
• $preview - Browse directory contents
• $preview --stop - Stop running server

Generation Mode

• $preview --explain - Generate visual explanation (ASCII + Mermaid + prose)
• $preview --slides - Generate presentation slides (one concept per slide)
• $preview --diagram - Generate focused diagram (ASCII + Mermaid)
• $preview --ascii - Generate ASCII-only diagram (terminal-friendly)

Argument Resolution

When processing arguments, follow this priority order:

1. --stop → Stop server (exit)
2. Generation flags (--explain, --slides, --diagram, --ascii) → Generation mode. Load references/generation-modes.md
3. Resolve path from argument:

• If argument is an explicit path → use directly
• If argument is a contextual reference → resolve from recent conversation context

1. Resolved path exists on filesystem → View mode. Load references/view-mode.md
2. Path doesn't exist or can't resolve → Ask user to clarify

Topic-to-slug conversion:

• Lowercase the topic
• Replace spaces/special chars with hyphens
• Remove non-alphanumeric except hyphens
• Collapse multiple hyphens → single hyphen
• Trim leading/trailing hyphens
• Max 80 chars - truncate at word boundary if longer

Multiple flags: If multiple generation flags provided, use first one; remaining treated as topic.

Placeholder {topic}: Replaced with original user input in title case (not the slug).

Error Handling

| Error | Action | |-------|--------| | Invalid topic (empty) | Ask user to provide a topic | | Flag without topic | Ask user: "Please provide a topic: $preview --explain " | | Topic becomes empty after sanitization | Ask for topic with alphanumeric characters | | File write failure | Report error, suggest checking permissions | | Server startup failure | Check if port in use, try $preview --stop first | | No generation flag + unresolvable reference | Ask user to clarify which file they meant | | Existing file at output path | Overwrite with new content (no prompt) | | Server already running | Reuse existing server instance, just open new URL | | Parent plans/ dir missing | Create directories recursively before write |

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: manhvann
• Source: manhvann/codexkit
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.