Carousels MCP Server

carousels-mcp

MCP server that turns articles, transcripts, and markdown into LinkedIn carousel PDFs, Instagram PNGs, and Threads PNGs. Content in, slides out. No web UI, no cloud service.

Where this came from

I'd been building LinkedIn carousels manually -- Gemini for the content distillation, SVG generation for the slides, Puppeteer for the PDF conversion, then merging everything together. The whole process is documented in this article. It worked well but it was a lot of steps. So I packaged the pipeline into an MCP server. Now Claude handles the orchestration and I just tell it what I want.

What it does

You've got an article or a YouTube transcript or some markdown notes and you want a carousel. This server handles everything: content extraction, slide planning, SVG generation, PDF/PNG output. Give it a URL and it scrapes the content. Give it just a topic and it tells Claude how to research first using other MCP tools, then call back with the results.

The content extractor is actually quite good at picking the right slide type automatically. Numbers and percentages become stat slides. Ordered lists become step-by-step slides. Strong emphasis becomes takeaway callouts. "Before/after" language triggers comparison slides. The usual content, list, and quote types are there obviously, plus code slides for technical content and a CTA slide at the end.

The five tools

Eleven slide types

cover · content · code · quote · list · cta · stat · comparison · steps · takeaway · dataviz

Multi-platform output

Each platform gets the right dimensions and format. No fiddling with resize tools.

• LinkedIn -- 1080x1350, merged into a single PDF carousel
• Instagram -- 1080x1080, individual PNG slides at 2x resolution
• Threads -- 1080x1350, individual PNGs

Getting started

Claude Desktop config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "carousels": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@houtini/carousels-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "CAROUSEL_TEMPLATES_DIR": "/path/to/your/brand-kits"
      }
    }
  }
}

CAROUSEL_TEMPLATES_DIR is optional. Skip it if you're fine with the built-in templates.

Or install globally:

npm install -g @houtini/carousels-mcp

PDF and PNG output

SVG generation works out of the box. For the actual PDF and PNG files you need Puppeteer:

npm install -g puppeteer

Without it everything still works -- you just get SVG files. The server tells you this in its response, so you'll know. For most workflows you want Puppeteer installed. The SVG-only path is there as a fallback.

Gemini MCP integration

This is where it gets interesting. If you've got Gemini MCP installed alongside carousels-mcp, the two servers work together through Claude's orchestration. The carousel server can't see Gemini's tools directly -- MCP servers are isolated from each other -- but the tool descriptions teach Claude how to compose them.

What that means in practice:

• Research-first carousels. Give create_carousel just a topic and it returns orchestration instructions. Claude picks up the workflow, calls gemini_deep_research for the content, then calls back with the results. You get a carousel about a topic you haven't written about yet.
• Custom charts. Use preview_slides to get a slide plan, then ask Gemini's generate_svg to create charts or diagrams for specific slides. Inject the SVGs into the plan's customSvg fields and call render_slides. The chart ends up embedded directly in the slide.
• Quality review. After rendering, Gemini's analyze_image can review the output PNGs and suggest improvements. Useful for catching text overflow or layout issues before