Which CLI to Use
| CLI | Execution model | Best for | Network and credentials |
|---|---|---|---|
deckuse | Local-first, file-native PPTX workspace | Locally inspect and modify PPTX structure, replace text, set titles or font sizes, move shapes, and commit back to .pptx | Run local file operations after installation; no login, API key, or cloud requests required |
deckops | Cloud-backed DeckFlow task runner | Create, Translate, Compress, OCR, Convert, Extract, Join, task management, and batch automation | Requires login or token; uploads files and requests DeckFlow backend; ongoing tasks require a valid key, space, and credits |
DeckUse is best suited for scenarios involving "opening an existing PPTX and making controlled structural changes locally." It unpacks the .pptx file into a workspace, applies commands to the Office Open XML structure in the local directory, and finally commits the changes back to PPTX. It is designed to be open source, locally installable, and locally executable; as long as dependencies are installed, daily processing requires no network requests.
DeckOps is better suited for scenarios involving "handing files over to the DeckFlow backend for conversion, generation, translation, or OCR." It handles uploading files, creating tasks, polling task status, and supports --json output for script or agent parsing. Since tasks are executed in the cloud, DeckOps requires a valid token/space and an active network connection.
Capability Map
| Capability | DeckUse | DeckOps |
|---|---|---|
| Local PPTX structure reading | list slides, show slide, get text | Not a core capability |
| Local PPTX structure modification | set text, set font-size, move, replace, commit | Not a core capability |
| PPTX safety boundaries | Modify existing XML nodes, text, transforms, and styles as much as possible; avoid modifying rel/media/package topology by default | Handled by backend task system |
| Deck generation | Not responsible for generating new deck content | create |
| Document translation | Not responsible for cloud translation | translate |
| File compression | Not responsible | compress |
| OCR | Not responsible | ocr |
| Format conversion/rendering | README explicitly recommends using DeckOps for rendering and conversion | convert |
| Multiple PPTX merging | Not a core command currently | join |
| Task query/deletion | No task system required | task list, task get, task delete |
| Agent/CI output | Local commands can be chained by scripts | --json, --no-wait, --timeout, repl |
Recommended Split
When both inputs and outputs should remain on the local machine, prioritize using DeckUse. For example, batch-replacing company years, renaming specific slide titles, moving existing shapes, reading slide/title/text structures, or allowing coding agents to make incremental local edits to PPTX files.
When the task itself requires cloud capabilities, use DeckOps. For example, generating a deck from a prompt/reference file, translating PPTX/PDF/DOCX/XLSX/KEY files, converting PPTX to PDF/video/image, compressing large files, OCR on images, or integrating background tasks into CI/Agent pipelines.
Source Basis
- DeckUse GitHub: https://github.com/deckflow/deckuse
- DeckUse README/manual/source entrypoint:
README.md,manual.md,src/cli.ts - DeckUse npm metadata checked on 2026-05-27: public package is
deckuse, binary isdeckuse, Node requirement is>=18.0.0 - DeckOps GitHub: https://github.com/deckflow/deckops
- DeckOps README/source entrypoint:
README.md,src/cli.ts,src/commands/* - DeckOps npm metadata checked on 2026-05-27: public package is
deckops, binary isdeckops, latest npm version is0.4.2