Dane Hesseldahl
Senior Roku developer and OTT engineer building streaming TV platform experiences for millions. Currently at Crunchyroll. Previously Disney Streaming, Hulu, Nordstrom. 25+ years shipping code for the web and the living room.
Featured Projects
roku-mcp
MCP server for AI agents to interact with Roku devices — inspect SceneGraph UI, send remote input, take screenshots, query device state.
rokuperf
CLI profiling tool for Roku channels — live metrics, SceneGraph diffing, BrightScript console.
botcall-mcp
An MCP server that gives AI agents real phone numbers. Provision a number, receive SMS, and extract verification codes.
Latest Posts
LiveElement: The Trick That Makes TV Testing Work
Every E2E testing framework for phones and browsers gives you element references that go stale the moment the screen changes. LiveElement doesn't. It re-queries the device on every call, which sounds expensive until you realize it's the only thing that actually works on a TV.
Uncle Jesse: E2E Testing for TVs That Doesn't Suck
I've spent a decade watching Roku test infrastructure held together with duct tape and prayers. So I built a Playwright-style E2E framework that talks directly to the device over HTTP. No Appium. No Selenium. No Java. No tears. Here's why it exists and how it works.
roku-mcp: Teaching AI Agents to Use a Television
I built an MCP server that lets Claude, Copilot, and Codex directly control a Roku. Inspect the UI, navigate menus, take screenshots, run smoke tests. All you need is the device IP and some basic knowledge of your app's layout. Here's what that looks like in practice.