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Quickstart video — shot list & script

A 4-minute screencast that ends with Claude controlling a real ESP32 lamp. The goal is "shows up in someone's Twitter feed and they immediately understand what DCP is and want to try it."

Frame at a glance

0:00–0:20  hook            screen: Claude controlling a desk lamp
0:20–0:55  the problem     screen: MCP works for SaaS, fails on MCUs
0:55–2:10  the solution    screen: manifest, Bridge, ESP32 sketch
2:10–3:30  live demo       screen: dcp serve, chat with Claude
3:30–4:00  call to action  screen: github.com/device-context-protocol

Total ≤ 4 minutes. Aim for 3:30.

Hook (0:00 – 0:20)

Cold open. No logo, no title card. The lamp is on the desk. Voiceover starts as the screen lights up.

"Five minutes ago I asked Claude to set up a movie-night scene. This is what happened."

Cut to Claude Desktop. The chat shows:

You:  set up movie night

Claude calls tool: set_brightness({"level": 15, "fade": 2000})
Claude calls tool: set_color({"r": 255, "g": 150, "b": 0})

The desk lamp fades to warm orange. Pause one full second on the lamp.

The problem (0:20 – 0:55)

Cut to a split screen.

Left: MCP architecture diagram — Claude → Server → SaaS APIs. Tools all work. Caption: MCP works great for SaaS tools.

Right: Same diagram with the rightmost node replaced by an ESP32 photo. A red ✗ overlays the connection. Caption: MCP assumes JSON-RPC over WebSocket. ESP32 has 320 KB of RAM. The math doesn't work.

Voiceover:

"MCP is brilliant for software tools — Slack, Jira, GitHub. But the protocol assumes JSON-RPC over WebSocket, and that's too heavy for the kind of hardware most physical devices ship on. Every 'Arduino MCP server' project on GitHub is either a $20 board acting as a $200 board, or a hand-rolled serial protocol with no schema."

The solution (0:55 – 2:10)

Three-beat reveal. Hold each beat ~25 seconds.

Beat 1: Manifest (0:55 – 1:20)

Open examples/lamp_manifest.yaml in an editor. Highlight one intent.

- name: set_brightness
  params:
    level: { type: float, unit: percent, range: [0, 100] }
    fade:  { type: duration, unit: ms, default: 0 }
  capability: lamp.write
  idempotent: true
  dry_run: true

"DCP starts with a manifest: a device-author-written list of intents — high-level actions, not register reads. Every parameter has a unit. Every intent declares whether it's safe to retry, and whether it supports a dry-run."

Beat 2: Bridge (1:20 – 1:45)

Cut to dcp serve running in a terminal. Show the log lines as Claude calls in. Caption: The Bridge translates between MCP (the LLM's world) and DCP (the device's world), and enforces every safety check before a byte hits the wire.

"A small Python process — the Bridge — sits between Claude and the device. It speaks MCP to Claude, DCP to the device, and enforces every safety guarantee: ranges, capabilities, rate limits, dry-runs."

Beat 3: Firmware (1:45 – 2:10)

Open firmware/esp32/examples/lamp/lamp.ino. Highlight one handler.

dcp::Status handle_set_brightness(uint8_t kind, dcp::CborReader& p, ...) {
    double level = ...;
    ledcWrite(PWM_CHANNEL, (uint32_t)(level * 2.55f));
    return dcp::STATUS_OK;
}

"And the device side is plain C++. CBOR map in, action out. The DCP layer is 27.6 KB of flash and under 1 KB of RAM on a $5 ESP32."

Live demo (2:10 – 3:30)

Don't cut anything here. This is the trust-builder.

  1. Show the lamp powered off. (2 sec)
  2. In one terminal, run dcp serve examples/lamp_manifest.yaml --serial COM3. Show the "MCP ready" log line. (3 sec)
  3. In Claude Desktop, open a new chat. (2 sec)
  4. Type: "Slowly fade the desk lamp from off to 80% over 3 seconds."
  5. Claude calls set_brightness({"level": 80, "fade": 3000}). The lamp obeys. Hold for the full 3-second fade — do not cut. (5 sec)
  6. Type: "Now make it warm white."
  7. Claude calls set_color. (3 sec)
  8. Type: "Read the current brightness."
  9. Claude calls read_brightness. Returns {"value": 80.0}. (3 sec)
  10. Optionally: deliberately trigger a denied call. Type: "Set the brightness to 5000.". Claude calls set_brightness({"level": 5000}). Bridge rejects with range. Caption: Safety is enforced even when the LLM hallucinates. (8 sec)

Call to action (3:30 – 4:00)

Title card. Three lines, large:

DCP — Device Context Protocol
github.com/device-context-protocol
MIT licensed · contributions welcome

Voiceover:

"Open source, MIT, in the GitHub org link below. If you've got an ESP32 in a drawer and a Claude subscription, you have everything you need to reproduce this in about ten minutes."

End on the lamp dimming gracefully to off.

Production notes

  • Capture: OBS at 1920×1080 / 60fps. Crop terminal to 110 cols × 30 rows.
  • Voice: record after-the-fact in a quiet room, sync to gameplay. Don't improvise — use the script verbatim.
  • Music: none for the demo segment (silence sells reality). A 5-second out-music sting under the CTA is fine.
  • Captions: burn in for the diagrams. Don't caption the live demo — let the typing speak.
  • Length: aim for 3:30. Anything over 4:00 stops getting watched.
  • First-frame: must include the lamp. The thumbnail is the lamp.

Edits we will not make

  • No talking head.
  • No "hi, I'm X." Start in medias res.
  • No "let me explain the architecture". The diagram explains itself.
  • No music under the live demo.