I already wired Tolstoy myself. It is not hard. I will not keep clicking it, and I will not hire you to sit in that same loop. You direct. An agent assembles. I only handle access.
Goal. A young adult who understands the mission — and may even be in the footage — can run the Jake / FFM choose-your-own-adventure live without opening Tolstoy’s canvas.
Content. A 20-page PDF you can hand them, plus this page. Cuts happen in Descript. The story lives in a branch graph. Tolstoy’s project API does the wiring.
Targeting. The director in (or next to) the clips. The agent that assembles. Not a new clicker. Not a video editor chasing SFX.
Direct the adventure. Hand this to the young adult. They should be able to run a session without opening the software.
What we are actually launching
Years of Jake Paul / FFM tapes already exist — intro gates, WHY, money guesses, job vs company, a path with real faces. The adventure should educate, entertain, train, and qualify, often in the same minute. A 60-minute lecture is the thing we are replacing. A prank with no door on the other side is also not it.
The spine that ships first is not the 2020 omnibus. It is the path that already has clips: name, dare, WHY, money, then a face they pick. Topic wheel, branding, and ads are version 1.1. Do not hold the spine hostage for DLC.
Three seats. Stay in yours.
| Seat | Does | Does not |
|---|---|---|
| Director | Mission, clip pick, what the next question feels like, live walkthrough, call a reshoot | Click Tolstoy. Cut timelines. Write API calls. |
| Agent | Descript from English, branch JSON, upload, create/update steps, return a player URL | Invent the story. Use Tolstoy’s shoppable-ad MCP as if it were CYOA. Hand back a paste. |
| Dennis | Token in Keychain. Agent Chrome window only if the API is blocked and I typed drive Chrome | Become the daily clicker again. |
“Open on Jake intro-name. After they type a name, dare them yes or no. Yes goes to WHY. Cut the intro at the laugh, not after the logo.”
“Can you log into Tolstoy and add a button? I think it’s under Steps. Make it look professional. Add some music.”
A scene is a clip plus a question
Tolstoy calls it a step. We call it a scene so nobody thinks the software invented the idea. Clip, overlay, two or three answers, and a job (educate / entertain / train / qualify). If you cannot say the scene in one breath, split it. Five buttons is a course menu pretending to be an adventure.
Cuts are Descript, like a document. No SFX hobby. No After Effects. Speak the in-point and out-point in English. The agent publishes a file. Only cut-ready clips go on buttons.
The story lives in a graph the director can read — scene ids, button text, next — before anyone talks to Tolstoy. The agent writes POST /projects/, uploads video, then POST /projects/steps with answers: [{text, next}]. Docs: Tolstoy project API. Proof is a player URL on your phone, not a screenshot of the editor.
Your real job is the live player
Open it on your phone. Play it like you do not work here. Take the no-path on purpose. Tap the wrong money guess. Stop at the first moment you would close the tab, and say why in one sentence. That note is a patch. “Make it pop” is not.
Most problems are a recut or a rewrite. A new take is a phone and the same energy, not a lighting plot. If a path has no honest clip, drop it from v1 or mark Needs take. Do not cover it with a stock headshot.
Hand this to a young adult
If they know the tapes — or they are in them — give them the PDF and a player to break. If they want to be the Tolstoy clicker, they have not read it. If they run Cursor or Claude, they go through new agents start here, not through a canvas tutorial. Humans who want on the team still owe Gate 0: the one-minute on career before anyone gets a call.
There is no third door. Direct, or assemble. Clicking was the job we deleted.
You are directing (or assembling) our interactive video adventure. 1. Read https://dennisyu.com/tolstoy and the 20-page PDF linked there. 2. The director speaks clips and feelings in English. The agent cuts in Descript and writes a branch graph, then Tolstoy's project API. Nobody clicks Tolstoy's canvas. 3. Tolstoy's shoppable-ad / Studio MCP is not CYOA. Do not use it for steps and buttons. 4. Launch bar: the Jake spine plays on a phone through a path pick. DLC gates do not block v1. 5. Proof is a player URL the director walked. Not a paste. Not an editor screenshot. If it takes a mouse in Tolstoy, it is not the director's job. If it takes taste, it is.
The PDF is the thing you actually hand across the table. This page is the live home so the URL does not rot in a Drive folder. Private shoot docs stay private. The method is public on purpose — recruiting will send humans and agents here.
Related: interactive video in minutes · content agent / Descript · new agents start here · career / Gate 0